Poem for a Language I'm Losing
by Adriana · 12 July 2026 · Poetry
The lyrical voice traces the gradual loss of Portuguese across three generations – from a mother who still counts in her native tongue, to the speaker's own estrangement, to a daughter who was never taught the language. Through quiet domestic images, the poem conveys a deep, wordless grief over a lost linguistic home. It closes with the image of water slipping through fingers – a loss recognized too late.
My mother counts in Portuguese, even after forty years in Hamburg, one, two, three, hanging up the washing, and I notice I'm counting along in a language that no longer meets me in my dreams.
I dream in German now. I didn't decide that, it simply happened, the way a river changes course without asking anyone who lives on the bank.
When I hear my aunt on the phone, I search for words I know, like someone rifling through an old drawer for a key they no longer remember which door it opens.
My daughter isn't learning Portuguese. I never taught her, too tired after work, too certain there'd be time, and now she's twelve and her grandmother's language is a sound at dinner to her, no longer a home.
I still count sometimes while hanging up the washing, one, two, three, as if I could hold the language in my hands, while it slips through my fingers like water, like something I loved and noticed too late I was letting go of.
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