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denice frohman - accents lyrics

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my mom holds her accent like a shotgun,
with two good hands.
her tongue, all br-ss knuckle

slipping in between her lips
her hips, all laughter and wind clap

she speaks a sanchocho of spanish and english,
pushing up and against one another
in rapid fire

there is no telling my mother to be “quiet,”
my mother don’t know “quiet.”

her voice is one size better fit all
and you best not tell her to hush
she waited too many years for her voice to arrive
to be told it needed house-keeping

so it don’t matter if i’m in the next room
or in a park
my momma still gonna shout my name like
‘dene, ven por aqui’

see english sits in her mouth remixed
so “strawberry” becomes “eh-strawbeddy”
and “cookie” becomes “eh-cookie”
and kitchen, key chain, and chicken all sound the same.

my mama doesn’t say “yes”
she says, “ah ha”
and suddenly the sky in her mouth becomes a hector lavoe song.

her tongue can’t lay itself down fat enough
for the english language,
it got too much hip
too much bone

too much conga
too much cuatro
two step
got too many piano keys

in-between her teeth
it got too much clave
too much hand clap, hand clap
it got too much clave
too much hand clap, hand clap
it got too much hip
too much bone

too much conga
too much cuatro
two step
got too many piano keys
in-between her teeth

it got too much clave
too much hand clap, hand clap
it got too much salsa to sit still
it’s being an anxious child wanting to

make play-doh out of concrete
english be too neat for
her kind of wonderful

her words spill in conversation
between women whose hands are all they got
sometimes our hands are all we got
and our accents remind us that we are still
bomba, still plena

say “wepa” wepa
and a stranger becomes your hermano,
say “dale” dale
and a crowd becomes a family reunion.

my mother’s tongue is a telegram from her mother
decorated with the coqui’s of el campo

so even though her lips can barely
stretch themselves around english,
her accent is a stubborn comp-ss
always pointing her
towards home.

- denice frohman lyrics

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