Hindi’s characters hang off the shirorekha

like low clouds. The promise of rain: how I feel,
my language level a seven-year-old’s.

I have a chart, like one for learning English—
a for apple, b for ball—but unlike it,

my ma-bhasha is phonetic. C for cat—really?
I’ve digressed. Meaning, I have stepped away from—

my whole life a stepping away from. 
To read Hindi in Devanagari is to live

in the stutter-work of sound-making. 
But when Latin letters transcribe the script,

what dies? What forms? My mouth knows
how to tongue-curl the ड़ sound—

bless the memory of muscle!—except 
when I see it transmuted—like in dhadak—

my brain short circuits and my tongue misfires: 
a sound in no one’s lexicon.