LEARNING TO SWEAR

I didn't speak much as a child, though 

I learned early, as we all did, which words 

to avoid saying, even if muttered under our breath,

stepping carefully around them,

like broken glass littering the sidewalk,

referring to them, if compelled to,

only by their first letter or two. They were words,

mostly of bodily  function, that came with

punishment, words that got your mouth 

washed out with soap.

Later, I tried them out on my tongue,

alone in my room, foreign words,

oddly shaped and sharp, the sound of them

vaguely startling, even when unattached

to any particular meaning or context.

Last week, my daughter pleaded 

to learn a swear word in Finnish, which

I foolishly gave in to, a small stone

that will eventually be thrown 

back at me.

But since she was born, I have been trying

to unlearn the lazy and the vulgar,

leaving the slings and arrows 

to Shakespeare,

and those more clever with speech than me.

I want more praise, more praise,

less cursing of the gods we continually implore.

I want her to know -- and to know 

myself -- that I revere

this most ordinary of lives,

with its drudgery and inconsistencies, its shifting language 

which can never describe it all,

its welcoming silence at beginning and end.