Names Properly

My mother’s maiden name rolls on the breath,
tongue soft against the teeth, the final n
all but lost – Drouin.

Her married name’s tougher at the start,
tongue tip tight against the teeth: Te, te
like the tut of a flag

in stiff weather, like the clip of my pépère’s
ax in the north woods. The h, l and final t
all bear my father’s silent

weight, his sais pas, his melodic humming.
The r growls from the back of the throat,
glottal. Controlled.

I practice speaking both names properly –
Drouin et Theriault, the only French
I was given.

I learned the English names of things: tenement
and church. Split shift and overtime. No maison.
No eglise. Ma mère smothered

in the sea of otherness. Mon père sounding
like something swollen and still.  I retrieved
my lost language

from textbooks, learned it as a visitor to my life. 
Drouin et Theriault – an early song I’ve kept
all along – wind in trees, thread

unwinding from factory spools.
The feathery quilts qui mes grands-mères
ont toujours fait.