i spent last night
with a fever,
burning my skin
like wildfire
consuming a forest.

when the heat settled
just above thirty-seven,
my mind brought forward
the cyrillic alphabet.

my mum taught me —
people are always surprised
she doesn’t speak english.
she grew up in the sixties,
where the syllabus
included russian and latin.

when i was barely six,
we translated the names
of pin-up girls
on cigarette packets.

german came at ten,
english at fifteen.
in boarding school,
i helped a classmate
with french
until he grew annoyed
that i was,
apparently,
effortlessly clever.

italian arrived
through a video game
and now i wonder
how someone
who repeated a grade,
could, without panic,
tear through russian today.

i think i have
my hungarian heritage
to thank.
i don’t stumble
at endless suffix chains,
i match the signs,
ears tuned to every case.
i feel the meaning
of what isn’t said,
map the languages
and treat them like quests
as i search for structure
and logic in them.

so, when the patterns
grab me by my shoulders,
still feverish, still dancing,
i just follow the steps.