Relearned by Martha Christina

When my sister calls
to tell me our last
surviving aunt has died,
she says aunt as though
it were the insect, the same
way our parents and their
siblings said it, the last
of those voices, gone.

I moved away from family,
from their familiar accents;
I learned to say ahnt,
like my new neighbors.

In our weekly keep-in-touch
calls, my sister chides me
for my affectation, as she
calls it. But today, I repeat
our aunt’s name the way
I first learned to say it,
the way my sister says it,
the way we all did, back home.



Martha Christina has published two collections: Staying Found (Fleur-de-lis Press) and Against Detachment (Pecan Grove Press). Her work appears in earlier issues of Red Eft Review, and recently in Star 82 Review, Crab Orchard Review, and Tiny Seed Journal’s Pollinator Project. Born and raised in Indiana, she now lives in Bristol, Rhode Island.