My skin when I roll from bed

is puckered with cold. My ears,

tuned to silence, widen to the drip

of the radiator, the t.v. downstairs. All day I sing to myself,

aloud on the street in my own voice.

Under harsh lights

in this country my child

will push from me, escape

a second time across the border.

Still one, I wrap my belly

in words. Inside I feel

her mouth already moving, speaking

in a language I will never understand.

But Gordon understands many languages. Fluent in Spanish and proficient in French, she has also studied Russian, Gaelic, Quechua (the second language of Peru), and she is currently learning Portuguese.

In addition to using her Spanish for her work at Centro Presente, Gordon has used her knowledge of languages to do legal and medical translating for Linguistics Systems International. She also used to volunteer as a Spanish translator at Massachusetts General Hospital.