ain’t ain’t a word

and they won’t always understand you

when i was young i tried to hide the curled ends of my words

instead, grasping on to the way my family in ohio spoke

mocking the way their mouths shape through an a,

sayin’ everybody instead of y’all

afraid people’d stop listening if they could guess where i’m from

i’d stop strangers, tell them to guess what i talk like

prayin’ they say some neutral state situated smack in the middle,

somewhere they finish their words through the end-ing

when my great grandpa’d call

he only understood a twang

an instinct i can’t repress if i get talkin’ too fast
or have a couple of drinks

now grandpa can’t call me no more

and i miss the drawl of his voice

but i keep talkin’ on the phone to him,

or rather, he talks to me and i answer

in the twang he understood