Umlaut

Two little teeny-weeny black ink dots.
So strange. They looked accidental
Üp here, down there; two proud little jabs
With the point of my fountain pen.
If I had my way, I said wide-eyed at eleven,
I’d püt them ön ëvërÿthïng-
Speckle my childish essays with a hail of them,
A liberal rain of chocolate drops upon the soft sponge of my stories.
Nein, sagt den Lehrer lachend. Save them for German.
Foreign, mysterious to my untrained eye;
Yet significant- ‘was’ into ‘would be’, ‘train oil’ to ‘tears’,
Casual as a change of clothes, the flick of a switch.

I grew up but never outgrew my passion.
Became a linguist, wissenshungrig,
Seeking new links between texts and tongues.
My toils won me a tome of a dictionary;
So many new words to curve my lips, with difficulty, around.
Exam time: I frantically jabbed my paper
Left a ghost-umlaut imprinted on the desk.
Time progressed, my friends went their separate ways.
Not my languages; we grew closer still, more intimate.
Each umlaut now a demure peck on the cheek
In a letter to my German lover.
His own in reply blurred into efficient lines,
Missiles of rapid communication from his Wehrdienst rifle.
Always so practically-minded. Whatever attracted him to
This hopeless little umlaut-loving romantic?