It’s Like “I Have A Knee” Said Really Fast
When I order iced tea from the coffee shop,
the barista tries to say my name correctly, since
I’ve stopped using my false “Ann” stand-by,
so my name sounds bombastic spoken out loud,
hanging in the air to the sound particles
of everyone else’s name already called, and now
all the customers look up and at each other
with a kind of envy, for the lucky girl who drives that Maserati
of a name, the built-in verve and wit that must go along
with snipping sharp comebacks out of the catalog
of the rolling story of her tongue, her tongue a skilled
set of medical scissors poking beams of sun into the world’s
lost languages, shining rescue mission flashlights deep
down the throat to locate the gutturals, oh!
She has given us so much already, her smile a Je n'aime pas
to the wet garbage outside smelling like milk and cardboard.
He apologizes if he’s said it wrong,
though he’s said it thrice now, each time
a tiny test, a wee thumb pressing down
on a teensy detonator or a name,
but I smile and tell him it’s kind of him
to care enough to try, braving the slaughter
that mangled my four letters long before
there was a barista or even a coffee shop
in this part of town, the Aveenahni, the poly-
syllabic foist mangling its origin myth,
Avani, Sanskrit for Earth, or the effervescent
question, You mean Avery? in the wan hope that birth
certificate, driver’s license, college transcript
had committed the gravest crimes against me,
misspelling my smooth Avery into a cystic Avni.
It is easy to feel heavy from carrying my name,
but I have learned the reflexes of misspellings,
I have cleared snot from sinus, phlegm from lung
to say my name right the first time around,
and so expected, like my P.E. coach in seventh grade,
for everyone to say, “If I can’t say your name
by tomorrow, I’ll buy you a Diet Coke each time
I see you,” because my name’s a living corpus
raised from the dead of college schedules
at the start of each semester when I incant
it slowly in front of thirty college freshmen
until we all say it together, repeating it
so it rings like the chorus to the political rallies
or stoned music festivals of their summers,
and we let it writhe in the air, a nimbus of our voices.
My name, the four letters nicknames
have tried to simplify, sweeten with Aveneezer,
Baby, V. It’s no Kater Tot, or Velucyraptor,
as I’ve dubbed others. How proud he is
that he’s said it right. How he and the other baristas
throw it back and forth, the lovely weight of it,
Avni Avni Avni, lobbing it with “Ahhh”s ease,
catching it with “v” and, elated, “ni!”, tossing it back.
My name, the cootchie-coo of the coffee shop, my name, the tuber of grade-school, refusing to surface until now, slick and sharp amongst the wilted petals of Ashley, the dulled fronds of Andrew drooping into the mud.
When I order iced tea from the coffee shop,
the barista tries to say my name correctly, since
I’ve stopped using my false “Ann” stand-by,
so my name sounds bombastic spoken out loud,
hanging in the air to the sound particles
of everyone else’s name already called, and now
all the customers look up and at each other
with a kind of envy, for the lucky girl who drives that Maserati
of a name, the built-in verve and wit that must go along
with snipping sharp comebacks out of the catalog
of the rolling story of her tongue, her tongue a skilled
set of medical scissors poking beams of sun into the world’s
lost languages, shining rescue mission flashlights deep
down the throat to locate the gutturals, oh!
She has given us so much already, her smile a Je n'aime pas
to the wet garbage outside smelling like milk and cardboard.
He apologizes if he’s said it wrong,
though he’s said it thrice now, each time
a tiny test, a wee thumb pressing down
on a teensy detonator or a name,
but I smile and tell him it’s kind of him
to care enough to try, braving the slaughter
that mangled my four letters long before
there was a barista or even a coffee shop
in this part of town, the Aveenahni, the poly-
syllabic foist mangling its origin myth,
Avani, Sanskrit for Earth, or the effervescent
question, You mean Avery? in the wan hope that birth
certificate, driver’s license, college transcript
had committed the gravest crimes against me,
misspelling my smooth Avery into a cystic Avni.
It is easy to feel heavy from carrying my name,
but I have learned the reflexes of misspellings,
I have cleared snot from sinus, phlegm from lung
to say my name right the first time around,
and so expected, like my P.E. coach in seventh grade,
for everyone to say, “If I can’t say your name
by tomorrow, I’ll buy you a Diet Coke each time
I see you,” because my name’s a living corpus
raised from the dead of college schedules
at the start of each semester when I incant
it slowly in front of thirty college freshmen
until we all say it together, repeating it
so it rings like the chorus to the political rallies
or stoned music festivals of their summers,
and we let it writhe in the air, a nimbus of our voices.
My name, the four letters nicknames
have tried to simplify, sweeten with Aveneezer,
Baby, V. It’s no Kater Tot, or Velucyraptor,
as I’ve dubbed others. How proud he is
that he’s said it right. How he and the other baristas
throw it back and forth, the lovely weight of it,
Avni Avni Avni, lobbing it with “Ahhh”s ease,
catching it with “v” and, elated, “ni!”, tossing it back.
My name, the cootchie-coo of the coffee shop, my name, the tuber of grade-school, refusing to surface until now, slick and sharp amongst the wilted petals of Ashley, the dulled fronds of Andrew drooping into the mud.
