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49 english for years, it meant identifying noun,verb,adjective, or napping as miss dewlap droned “evangeline.” The beatles’ english meant Carnaby street: birds in bellbottoms; pounding Mersey rock. still, though i came from English stock, the language seemed alien, like smoke i sucked into my lungs and blew back out. i never guessed that, without english, the doobies i puffed, the wine coolers that sluiced down my chin on sticky August nights, would disappear. The nights would too, sucked into the unconscious void. even that void would vanish, unable to maintain the non-substance of its nothingness.A pencil might still half-exist as a lapiz. Le ciel might keep a shadowy trace of bleu. but there would be no more abominations. no breasts,soul kisses,or Mr. Stiffie. no one could be truculent,glum,dyspeptic, concupiscent, stoked,inscrutable. Who’d practice loan sharking without vigorish? The girl i dragged out of green lake would have drowned without the crawl stroke and resuscitate. losing english, i’d be empty as the man who woke from a coma, iQ intact, but unable to love. no wonder televangelists adoreTheWord! 50 God molded me with english out of formlessness, and blew between my lips the tongue that made him. praising english, i use it every day, and pray the world that i create with it is good. ...

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