Flat

After she said I can't hear it at all anymore —

smiling like she'd given me something —

I went into the bathroom

and said a word from home.

Not to practice. Just to hear it.

Just to find out which version came out.

The mouth in the mirror was mine

but the word landed wrong —

not the home version, not the here version,

something caught between the two

that doesn't belong to either place.

My mother said it first, last week:

you sound different now.

I'd taken it as a compliment

before I thought about it.