The Six Languages We Don't Use at Dinner (Multilingual)

Lyrics

The sound of a single fork on a plate. Six o'clock.
The lamp oil smells of yesterday.
The chill from the window finds the back of my neck.

Pemba sets down the bread.
The crust is hard. The potatoes steam in the bowl, a small white cloud in the cold room.
My fork is silver, but the tines are dark where the polish wore away in 1993.
He does not need to speak the rule.
It hangs in the air, heavier than the smell of boiled starch.
It has its own grammar.

The First is Italian, for when the chisel slips.
The Second is French, for the burnt corner of the page.
The Third is Polish, a noun and a verb at once.
These are the languages of the other room. 
Not this one.

Mrs. Patterson is here tonight. She butters her bread to the very edge.
She approves of the silence.
She and Pemba share a look across the table.
A treaty signed without a single word.
They know the sounds I keep in the second drawer of my mind.
They have drawn a circle of quiet around this table, around this plate.

The Fourth is Russian, for when the tide comes in too fast.
The Fifth is Korean, for the shattered stone.
The Sixth is Mandarin, for when the world is simply wrong.
These are the languages of the workshop. 
Not the table.

Each word has its own weight, its own color on the tongue.
I map their syntax on the chalkboard of my thoughts.
The neural pathways light up, a city seen from a great height.
But here, the only spark is from my fork hitting the porcelain rim.
A different percussion.
A different grammar.

I chew my potato.
The silence is a language too. The seventh one.
The one we are allowed to use.
The fork rests on the plate.
The meal is almost over. 
The rule is kept.