What My Mother Prayed in the Other Language

She prayed in the language I was taught to lose,soft in the kitchen, before the six o'clock news.I never learned the words, only the tune.

I told myself it was a fair thing to choose —one country's grammar for another's view.She prayed in the language I was taught to lose.

I catch it still in traffic, in the bluesa stranger hums that sounds like something true.I never learned the words, only the tune.

My daughter asks what god we don't refuse,and I have no verse to hand her, no clear cue.She prayed in the language I was taught to lose.

Maybe faith was never in the words I'd use,but in a woman certain no one knew.I never learned the words, only the tune.

So let this stand for what I could not choose:she prayed in the language I was taught to lose.I never learned the words, only the tune.