Shibboleth

many things have marked you as the alien 
already here in the New World and so you 
were not pretending when you pronounced 
the word: Arkansas, you who have crossed 
the Atlantic bruised with jet lag and vertigo

stressing the second syllable, upon descent 
from the sky, nobody on the floor could un 
derstand when you repeated the word again

the word was foreign to everyone such that 
the place became imaginary until someone 
of your tongue heard you in the confusion

O, you mean AR-kan-saw? yes! in your own 
defense one of those confounded argued that 
no one could blame you. citing her grandma

spoke no English as a native speaker though 
she was a native speaker of her thought as if 
you’re on trial like the men of Ephraim when 
fording the Jordan back home with Shibboleth

that is the ear of corn, and whosoever said it 
wrong was an enemy to be slain. in your own 
defense, the word never belonged originally 
to the English but first to the Quapaw, who 
intoned oo-ka-na-sa, and then to the Gallic

who took the land and its fullness thereof. The 
Gallic who paid the price in the battle of the 
Golden Spurs in Bruges against Flanders for 
failure to intone gilden vriend. That is, friends 
of the Guild; in Sicily for failure to sow ciciri

that is, chickpeas, on their romance tongue. in 
your defense, two men of its senate fought on 
the way to say it: Ar-Kan-Sas or Ar-Kan-Saw 
until by proclamation of the chamber the latter 
prevailed. you’ve come to bruise the word again

Read more from Issue 19.2.