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The Abduction of Even Language

By Nicholas Samaras
Poetry•Blurring Borders – Vol. XXIV No. 1 (Spring 2011)
    (Reference Guide for the Immigrant, Emigrant, and Sundry Kidnapped Refugee Classes)

A cookie is a biscuit. A drink is lemonade.
Jelly is jam. Ice cream is a cornet or a lolly.

A store is a shop. Food is a nosh up. Food is tuck.
You can also tuck somebody up, Cor Blimey.

A coin is a tanner. A coin is a thrup’ney.
Rich money is bob and quid. Police are bobbies. And Bob’s your uncle.

A road is a motorway. A truck is a lorry. Gas is petrol.
Pants are trousers. Garbage is rubbish.

Gratitude is Ta. Teasing is taking the mickey.
Adults are right dodgy. And donkeys have years.

A diaper is a nappy. A stroller is a pram.
A mother of a mother is a nanny. An apartment is a flat.

Four in the afternoon is a crumpet and tea. Sleep is kip.
Sleep is knackered and cream crackered.

Apples and pears are stairs. A watch is a kettle and hob.
A person is rung up or knocked up.

A couch is a settee to kip on when you’re skint.
A closet is a cupboard. And a flashlight is a torch.

A wrench is a spanner. A meadow is a park.
A school is a uniform you wear each day. A friend is a mate or china.

Going to see a man about a dog is none of your business.
Punishment is the stocks on the village green.

A frog and toad leads to a row house
where I am not I and I can’t explain—

where my words become dickey birds
and I become the little boy who lives down the lane.

Nicholas Samaras won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award with Hands of the Saddlemaker. He is currently finishing his next manuscript while residing in West Nyack, New York with his family.

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