The Shallow Ends
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MONTAGE WITH PIZZA, COINS, AND DEER

4/30/2020

 
                     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.













​​
Picture
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.

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