|
by Marlin M. Jenkins At the pizza joint the man asking the employee “Don’t you speak English?” and then the ensuing escalation in voice, in number of people involved. The ask to leave, if ask is accurate—soft demand, perhaps. And then the man, irate: “Don’t you want my money?” And then, when he finally moves toward the exit, the walk backwards as to still face the worker, repeating: “Learn English, muh’fucka, learn English” all the way out the door. In another country once I watched a man walk with a deer and feed it from his hand— not far, the tide eased outward revealing barnacles embracing the base of a shrine, the sand covered in a layer of coins, tiny interrupted crabs scurrying to nowhere. One night, in a different Michigan city, we bought an assortment of fireworks, ones we hadn’t tried before for July 4th, and took them to the front of the library, couldn’t get some of them to light, explode— behind us, a giant lit and coin-filled fountain. What year was it? Us Arabs in an Arab town failing to cause our celebratory nationalist explosions. In Hiroshima: a group of us Americans walking the Peace Museum, that same day observing the wreckage of when our country bombed this country: meanwhile, back home, Asian Americans being shouted at to learn English by, I’m certain of it, not only the white folks (— though make no mistake: yes, also and primarily by the white folks.) A moment of misguided ancestors, of being American first, the sick solidarity of hegemonic hate. Later, night after the Museum, I tried to order a donut and could see the employee’s visible—justified—frustration at my lack of Japanese. Near the shrines, the deer followed me for a taste of ice cream, unafraid. If deer had somehow come upon us trying to light fuses at the library, we would never have known—only the trees in on their pre-fleeing secret. The deer don’t care that we’re similarly brown, similarly hunted. Once, where I live now, two miles from the pizza joint, I almost hit a deer who watched me from the center of a round-about, grassy patch interrupted by what we have paved, space for our machines which speak in revs and hums. But, pan back to the pizza joint. Edit the shot to what I wish had happened: the whole place filling with deer, surrounding the man and escorting him out, if escort is accurate—dozens and dozens of them, each speaking soft a different language, each with coins they have no use for dripping off their tongues.  photo by Emma Richter Marlin M. Jenkins was born and raised in Detroit and is the author of the poetry chapbook Capable Monsters (Bull City Press, 2020). A graduate of University of Michigan's MFA in poetry, his work has found homes through Indiana Review, The Rumpus, Waxwing, and Kenyon Review Online, among others. You can find him online at marlinmjenkins.com. Comments are closed.
|