This “accent” that I can’t lose & they can’t place

“Twang they. And I incline this ear to tin, consult a dual dilemma.” –Gwendolyn Brooks

most times, people can hear the twang

before I do, this southern relic on my tongue they

register like a vague lilt or song, and

an inkling fidgets inside me, so I

smile, lean into unspoken knowing’s incline

that people miss, overlook, like this

the curl of Ellison’s Invisible Man’s ear

crouched under the lights and Armstrong to-

ward my voice—folk more gold to me than tin.

---

Tara Betts (@tarabettschitown) is the author of Refuse to Disappear, Break the Habit, Arc & Hue. Betts teaches at DePaul University’s Peace, Justice, and Conflict Studies Program and serves as poetry editor for The Langston Hughes Review. Betts coedited The Beiging of America: Being Mixed Race in the 21st Century, a critical edition of Philippa Duke Schuyler’s Adventures in Black & White, and Carving Out Rights From Inside the Prison Industrial Complex.