Accents by Denice Frohman

《口音》———丹妮斯·佛罗曼

来源视频

I'm Denice Frohman,

and this is "Accents."

My mom holds her accent like a shotgun,

with two good hands.

her tongue, all brass knuckle

slipping in between her lips

her hips, are all laughter and wind clap.

我叫丹妮斯·佛罗曼，

这首诗题为《口音》。

我妈妈说话带口音，

就好像用双手紧握着猎枪。

她的舌头像 戴上了指节铜环，

从她的双唇间溜进；

她的臀部充满了笑声和风声。

She speaks a sanchocho  of spanish and english,

pushing up and against one another,

in rapid fire

there is no telling my mama to be "quiet,"

my mama don't know "quiet."

她说话西班牙语和英语夹杂着，

就像用快火烩制一锅大杂烩，

各种食材相互推推攘攘， 你挤我碰。

没法叫我妈妈“静下来”，

因为我妈妈不明白  “quiet” 是什么意思

Her voice is one size better fit all

and you best not tell her to hush,

she waited too many years for her  voice to arrive

to be told it needed house keeping.

她的音量使得她十分健谈，

你最好别叫她静下来，

她一贯如此说话，

这许多年之后，她才得知她的 音量需要 “内务”管理。

English sits in her mouth remixed

so "strawberry" becomes "eh-strawbeddy"

and "cookie" becomes "eh-cookie"

and kitchen, key chain, and chicken  all sound the same.

英语在她的嘴中加以混音，

于是 “strawberry (草莓)” 变成了 “eh-strawbeddy”,

“cookie (饼干)”变成了 “eh-cookie”，

而 “kitchen (厨房)”、“key chain (钥匙扣)” 和 “chicken (鸡)” 听起来都 一样。

my mama doesn't say "yes"

she says, "ah ha"

and suddenly the sky in her mouth  becomes a Hector Lavoe song.

her tongue can't lay itself  down flat enough

for the English language,

it got too much hip

too much bone

too much conga

too much cuatro

to two step

我妈妈不说 “yes (是的)”，

她说 “ah ha”，

突然，她嘴里的天空变成了 赫克托·拉沃的歌，

她的舌头无法摊平

说英语。

这舌头有太大臀部，

太多骨头，

太多康加舞，

太多四弦吉他，

无法跳两步舞,

got too many piano keys

in between her teeth,

it got too much clave

too much hand clap

got too much salsa to sit still

it be an anxious child wanting to

make Play-Doh out of concrete

English be too neat for

her kind of wonderful.

在她的牙齿间，

太多钢琴键，

太多打击节奏，

太多拍手声，

太多萨尔萨舞，让人坐不住，

它像个焦虑的孩子，

想要把混凝土 变成培乐多彩泥，

英语太整洁了，

不适合表达她 那种美好的方式，

her words spill in conversation

between women whose hands are all they got

sometimes our hands are all we got

and accents that remind us  that we are still

bomba, still plena

她在俩女人间谈话，滔滔不绝，

双手是她们所有的，

有时，我们的双手 是我们所有的。

而口音提醒我们

仍是炸弹，仍是集会。

you say "wepa"

and a stranger becomes your hermano,

you say "dale"

and a crowd becomes a family reunion.

my mother's tongue is a telegram  from her mother

decorated with the coqui's of el campo

so even when her lips can barely

stretch themselves around english,

her accent is a stubborn compass

always pointing her

towards home.

你说“哇，太好了”，

一个陌生人就成了你的兄弟，

你说“加油”，

一群人就成了家人团聚，

我妈妈的发音就像她妈妈，

用“呱呱”类似声音装饰的电报

因此即使她的嘴唇

很难吞吐说出英语，

但她的口音就如同永恒的指南针

总是引领着她

回乡。