Born a Crime

going right by me in Pedi or in
Sotho, but that’s completely normal
in South Africa so it never bothered
me; I got enough of the gist of the
conversation from everyone’s
English to know what was going on.
And the way my mind works with
language, even when I’m hearing
other languages, they get filtered
into English as I’m hearing them.
My mind stores them in English.
When my grandmother and great-
grandmother were hysterically
praying to God to destroy the
demon that had shit on their
kitchen floor, all of that transpired
in Xhosa, but it’s stored in English.