Sometimes I regret teaching you words,
my daughter laments when I use kin
and stan in a sentence
about Emily Dickinson. One perk
of having kids is stepping
into culture’s river at its current point,
not stagnating on the bank with outdated
slang and cassette tapes. Sadly,
today’s teens blast everything
through headphones, foiling
my chance to learn new bands.
Lyrics are easy for them,
available at a click, while we had to listen
on repeat for elusive lines.
I’m an inconsistent fan of evolution.
While I appreciate ship (the verb), thirst, simp,
fandom, and Excuse me, whomst?, and would come to blows
supporting singular they,
could have went and between you and I
rankle like biting flies.
I hope both my kids will be around
and patient if language deserts me
as it did my grandfather —
at first a misty fact or phrase,
then whole sentences dissolving on my lips –
and I need to be retaught the basics,
glass as a holder for water,
pants, a thing to wear around guests,
and, though it stabs me to imagine
losing these, their names.