Exchanging one anya-nyelv, mother-tongue, for another is like 
nibbling salted peanuts at the sticky bar top,
unplanned but eventual for a bilingual migrant. 

The other mother-
nyelv tongue is abandoned 
like leftovers in the fridge, at first only 
elhanyagolva, overlooked, then discarded. 
My semi-conscious weaving of this altering web of otthon, home, 
was already faltering and becoming less secure 
fractured structure slowly        being               evacuated.

Now with my temporary return a feeling of foreignness 
megcsíklandozza tingles my neck. I am placeless, feeling home neither there
nor here—in webs that had exiled teremtett bölcsődalom my cradle song. 

Occasionally, I toy with now messzi szavak distant words.
Belevésve a fogaimat sinking my teeth into their zamatos hús fruit meat,
letting the sounds and syllables legurulni roll down my chin,
and lecsöpögni drip onto my stomach:
               Holdfény leple alatt meztelenül vetjük magunkat a világ 
               hullámaiba,
veiled moonlight shades our naked forms as we 
hurl in new world waves
              de ahogy a hajnal pirkadata hasítja dombok 
              talpát a percnyi romantika megszakad, abba marad… but as dawn 
breaks foothills the momentary romance is disturbed, deterred…

This friss új íz fresh new taste gives me paper wings
but like Icarus I come tumbling down
shot through with heat, insecurity and xenophobic bile.

Hesitancy slaps my mouth 
for thinking that I, who left, had a right to speak—
akinek hangszálai duruzsolhatnak… 
I tread back to egy otthon a home ahol where my 
words are unhidden, unchained …

I begin a new embroidery, 
I unweave my mother’s dress, picking floss by flow, 
unraveling time.

Then I gather the gold strings and embed
them within the blueish hues. 
A nyelvem is birthed anew
stitching blues and gold through the air. 
I feel guilty, but I also feel              free.