It's Still Life

Part 11.2, Avignon, 1836: Liturgy for Accents That Betray
Where the crowd turns on a syllable

I. The Unforgivable Difference
Sometimes —
it is how you say it.

The foreign curl of a vowel,
a rhythm
learned elsewhere.

Brigid’s accent rises like smoke
above the herbs,
the ointments

like smoke from a fire
no one sees.

She asks
for chamomile,
for arnica,
for small remedies for strangers.

But accents speak:
I am not from here.

Belonging
is the only currency
some crowds accept.

II. The Accusation of “Foreigner”

The word strikes
like stone in still water.

The crowd shifts,
rearranges itself around difference.

“She stirs rebellion!”

But Brigid
is holding lavender.
Accusation
has its own hunger.

This is how crowds turn:
a word
finding a fault line
in an empty belly,
a face
for fear to wear.

III. The Knife at the Belt
Felreil stands behind her.

His hand moves.
Not to her arm,
but to the knife
between belt and pocket.

The gesture says enough:
we will not go quietly.

Avignon’s walls
offer no mercy.
Palace bells,
hollow with grandeur.

The crowd tightens.

Brigid’s accent hangs there,
a verdict
without trial.

IV. The Witnesses
A woman makes
the sign of the cross,

protection,
not piety,
as if an accent
were plague.

A pear falls
to the ground.

No one picks it up.

In a town
where hunger
is arithmetic,
even waste
becomes accusation.

A child stares.

Perhaps
the most dangerous witness,
because children remember.

V. For the Marked
Keep the accent
that betrays you,

and may it be
the only interest
they have.

Hold the hand
on the knife
not yet drawn,

and may it remain
a warning.

See the woman
who crosses herself.

May her fear
find a kinder target
than a stranger
buying lavender.

See the pear
on the ground:

may it feed someone
who has forgotten
what hunger tastes like.

And watch the child
who watches,

may they learn
to question
why a foreign voice
is a crime.

The crowd will turn.
Crowds always do.

But, keep walking.
Keep your accent
like a flag
you refuse to lower.

Foreigner
is not accusation.
It is geography.

It is the map
of everywhere
you have survived.