Cafe Grande

A café grande, you requested,

and they smiled uncertainly and asked,

“You mean a grande café?”

You nodded, recounting the episode

to your class of second-graders,

newly-conscious humans, really,

here to learn a few rudiments of Spanish.

We smiled at the mix-up,

round faces laughing at,

though we didn’t know it,

our own corruption of language.

Any word that enters this vocabulary

from an exotic foreign climate

is sure to be twisted or misplaced somehow

in blunt, hurried mouths

before being rereleased to the world

as the new standard,

devoid of the savory French delicacy

mélange de voyelles

or the bold, forward-thinking

Spanish “r,” heady dark chocolate

rolled in ground peanuts

and stuck in the whipped cream

of your café grande.