The 2River View | 21.4 (Summer 2017) |
Marcela Sulak Welcome! This is a family friendly river park! For your safety and the safety of the water, please observe the following regulations. This is a family. This is friendly. See the ducklings paddling at the precipice of the dam? Do not use your empty beer bottles as weapons. Honor your father and your mother. Honor the local gods. Grow tomatoes, squash, corn, and potatoes. Do not fornicate more than you can help it. Crush some cochineal. If fornication results in the birth of a child, raise it. In order to have a family of your own, you must be asked certain questions at some point in your life. Or you must ask them. The answer must be yes, eventually. Welcome! Welcome little vulture family with the grumpy adolescent, tail feathers scraggly in the wind. Welcome, calm mama vulture, black and sleek. Soon we will spread our wings. Soon we will comb the wind and learn the currents. Soon something will die. Welcome! As you can see, we are friendly here. We believe in families. We are sorry if you do not have one, but maybe, god willing, one day you will, too. Do not curse in your speech or in your tattoos. Say good morning. Say how are you. Say good afternoon. We do not hold an ounce of malice to anyone. We are very friendly, very kind. Undo the Sky Leave your guide Marcela Sulak is the author of Decency and Immigrant and co-editor of Family Resemblance: An Anthology and Exploration of 8 Hybrid Literary Genres. Twenty Girls to Envy Me. The Selected Poems of Orit Gidali was longlisted for the 2017 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. website
|
Copyright 2River. Please do not use or reproduce without permission. |