How to Fold a Fitted Sheet

There are things I didn’t need to learn, like Mandarin, which I tried because my daughter came

from China, but it only displaced the remnant of French tucked in my brain since high school. Je

became wǒ. I heard about a polyglot who landed in Paris and grabbed a taxi and began speaking

Mandarin instead of French by mistake, but the cabby knew Chinese and answered back. Neither

person was me. When I was in the PRC I was too shy to speak, and now I can’t read even

simplified characters. This year I signed on for Yiddish as if that would bring back my parents,

who used it as a secret language so the kind (me) wouldn’t understand. Each time I empty the

dryer I think I should figure out how to fold the fitted sheets. I mean—there’s YouTube! But so

intricate. That tucking in of corners (if you can call them corners) into opposite corners. My

fingers tongue-tied, draped arms extended as if preparing to give competence a hug. Turns out

my girl’s American: I misread the directions. No baleboste, but the sheets clean, if wrinkled, and

the basics down pat: fille, nǚu ér, tochter, daughter.

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AVRA WING’s poems appeared most recently in Grist, Healing Muse, and Hanging Loose, and are upcoming in New Ohio Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, and Pirene’s Fountain. She is the author of two novels: Angie, I Says, a New York Times “notable book” made into the film Angie, and After Isaac, for young adults. Avra leads a writing workshop at the Center for Independence of the Disabled New York.

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