ЯЗЫК ТЕЛА

ЯЗЫК ТЕЛА
Прамилa Венкатешваран

На грани разговоров, бурлящих вокруг меня на другом языке, мой английский был нем. Тишина проникала в мое тело, я тянусь к словам, которые я узнаю - 'kitap' книга, 'кафе', названия брендов. Я киваю и улыбаюсь, стараясь не выглядеть застенчивым, использую жесты, распахиваю девять ворот эмоций, позволяю удивлению, беспокойству, страху, гневу, зависти, отвращению, благочестию, удивлению и любви танцевать на моем лице, мои руки помогают мне, языковому беженцу, бродящему по базарам и выветренным от солнца руинам."Спасибо," говорю я официанту, касаясь сердца, когда он ставит ароматный кофе на стол. За двором - персиковый купол мечети. Я ожидаю, что муэдзин начнет петь в полдень, вспоминаю Хаджи Али Дарга, луну в заливе при поездках на автобусе домой из колледжа. В Калькутте, когда мне было 9, я играл тихо, прислушиваясь к болтовне одноклассников на бенгальском, впитывая их слова, пока они не стали моими.

BODY LANGUAGE
Pramila Venkateswaran

On the fringes of conversations
surging around me in a different language,
my tongue is frozen in English.
Silence funnels into my body
I reach for words I recognize—
‘kitap’ book, ‘caf;,’ brand names.

I nod and smile trying not to look demure,
use abhinaya, throw open the nine gates of emotion,
let wonder, worry, fear, ire, envy, disgust,
piety, surprise, and love cavort on my face,
my hands aiding me, a language refugee,
roaming bazaars and sun-weathered ruins.

“Thank you,” I say to the waiter, touching my heart
as he places aromatic coffee on the table.
Beyond the courtyard, the peach dome of a mosque.
I expect the muezzin to sing at noon,
remember Haji Ali dargah, a moon on the bay
on my bus rides home from college.

In Kolkata when I was 9, I’d played silently,
my ear tuned to my classmates chattering in Bengali,
drinking their words until they became mine.

Copyright © 2025 by Pramila Venkateswaran. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 24, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.

“When I visited Izmir, Turkey, I was surrounded by people who did not speak English. I thought about how we value spoken over nonverbal communication. In places where I don’t share the spoken language, I can still communicate using my facial expressions and gestures. In the poem, I refer to abhinaya, or facial expression conveying nine emotions (navarasa) in Indian classical dance, as an example of nonverbal communication that humans use.”
—Pramila Venkateswaran

Pramila Venkateswaran is the author of numerous poetry collections, most recently Exile Is Not a Foreign Word (Copper Coin, 2024) and We Are Not a Museum (Finishing Line Press, 2022), winner of a New York Book Festival award. From 2013 to 2015, Venkateswaran was the poet laureate of Suffolk County, Long Island. She is the codirector of Matwaala: South Asian Diaspora Poetry Festival.