I’m in exile from the mother tongue—in exile from the foreign tongue—in
exile from all the tongues that wag with the familiarity of knowing—with the
credibility and the certainty—and without any kind of doubt that this is their
town and country. I laugh out loud—and my laughter is as mother tongue
as any laughter in any foreign tongue—but the joke is on me—because my
laughter is not cheering for the other team which is roasting the barbaric
tongue over an open flame of racist jokes and innuendoes—which is what
the mother of all eggs laid in the foreign tongue wants—to leave me
speechless—without a motherland—a land to mother my thoughts or a bed
to lie down in.