top of page

From the Book of Wrong Words

Lena Zycinsky

Roughhousing 

with the language as foreign as my own

son, I twist a muscle:


a total numbness of the apparatus. I choke 

on words. I am desperate for the language 

to turn in my direction. It doesn’t. 


 “This is not how you pronounce it,” my seven-

year-old corrects me, full of love. The truth 

is, he is as foreign to me, as I am 

to him. Aren’t we all?


To feel better, I make a book of wrong words.


“It’s going to be my buttress,” I say

with a serious face, and he bursts 

into laughter. 


Lena Zycinsky is a poet and artist whose work appeared in the New York Times, Poetry Archive, Consequence Forum, among other places. Author of numerous books and shows abroad, she holds a BA in English and is currently a low-residency MFA student at NYU in Paris. Born in Belarus, Lena lived in the USA and Greece, and now resides in London.

bottom of page