Hola, ¿cómo estás niño? ¿Te llamo Carlos, cierto? ¿Carlitos? Or Carl. You live in Mexico City, and sometimes I wonder. About that particular chapter that is. Or rather that span of time. The skin here, so southern belle-ish on your sister and so I’m-going-to-help-build-the-atomic-bomb-ish on you. You’re running through the streets, playing with the little brown Mexican boys, but all the while there’s a sign hung over the kitchen table. “English spoken here,” it says.
You move to Montana. Wow, welcome to the united states in a big way. A big sky kind of way. Huckleberry fields (hell, huckleberry icecream), cows, horses, picking cherries. Somehow your father teaches Spanish here, in this place that (perhaps I know nothing of geography and migration trends) is as far from Mexico as I can imagine. You speak French too. That’s what your grandmother spoke or something. I think your mother too maybe. So many languages. Sometimes you try to teach me German – I have no idea where that came from, but it wasn’t from Montana. I never really liked French either.
You go to college when you were 15. Chicago is where you go to highschool. It was nice then. You went back and said it turned into a ghetto. Lots of blacks. No tie, wearing knickers, bad shirt too. You are poor. What do you expect when you pick cherries for a living? And your father teaches. And your mother is a mother because that is all a mother can do. She makes you two waffles because you’re a man, so you sneak out to buy Rebecca a cheese burger at night. Ella no entiende español. Ahora es cómico cuando nos hablamos y nunca nos entiende. ¡Da rabia esto! Pero, cuando eran amores, ¿cómo fue la interacción entre ella y tu mamá? You must have been the translator. An honest one, I’m sure.
There you are and all your children are grown up and have children of their own. You work for the government (still!) and enjoy a nice pension because off all the hard work and long years you put in. You take us on a trip to Hawaii. You take us on another trip to Hawaii. You take us to our “house” in Montana for a family reunion. It’s a log cabin in the middle of nowhere and we don’t stay very long, but we do go river rafting in the Snake River, which isn’t too far away. No, the Snake River must have been somewhere else you took us. Maybe. Anyway, you have a large house after years of saving. Very frugal, you are.
Cruising is your thing now. So much I wonder if you have even the chance to look at the pictures that cover the fridge that you leave for weeks on end to travel on extravagant boats. But, I know you see us. There are five photos in your wallet. Us guys and your favorite granddaughter. You also write poetry for all your grandchildren on their birthday. You write poetry. You speak Spanish. Who does your photo look like?
Hola, ¿cómo estás niño? ¿Te llamo Carlos, cierto? ¿Carlitos? Or Carl. You live in Mexico City, and sometimes I wonder. About that particular chapter that is. Or rather that span of time. The skin here, so southern belle-ish on your sister and so I’m-going-to-help-build-the-atomic-bomb-ish on you. You’re running through the streets, playing with the little brown Mexican boys, but all the while there’s a sign hung over the kitchen table. “English spoken here,” it says.
You move to Montana. Wow, welcome to the united states in a big way. A big sky kind of way. Huckleberry fields (hell, huckleberry icecream), cows, horses, picking cherries. Somehow your father teaches Spanish here, in this place that (perhaps I know nothing of geography and migration trends) is as far from Mexico as I can imagine. You speak French too. That’s what your grandmother spoke or something. I think your mother too maybe. So many languages. Sometimes you try to teach me German – I have no idea where that came from, but it wasn’t from Montana. I never really liked French either.
You go to college when you were 15. Chicago is where you go to highschool. It was nice then. You went back and said it turned into a ghetto. Lots of blacks. No tie, wearing knickers, bad shirt too. You are poor. What do you expect when you pick cherries for a living? And your father teaches. And your mother is a mother because that is all a mother can do. She makes you two waffles because you’re a man, so you sneak out to buy Rebecca a cheese burger at night. Ella no entiende español. Ahora es cómico cuando nos hablamos y nunca nos entiende. ¡Da rabia esto! Pero, cuando eran amores, ¿cómo fue la interacción entre ella y tu mamá? You must have been the translator. An honest one, I’m sure.
There you are and all your children are grown up and have children of their own. You work for the government (still!) and enjoy a nice pension because off all the hard work and long years you put in. You take us on a trip to Hawaii. You take us on another trip to Hawaii. You take us to our “house” in Montana for a family reunion. It’s a log cabin in the middle of nowhere and we don’t stay very long, but we do go river rafting in the Snake River, which isn’t too far away. No, the Snake River must have been somewhere else you took us. Maybe. Anyway, you have a large house after years of saving. Very frugal, you are.
Cruising is your thing now. So much I wonder if you have even the chance to look at the pictures that cover the fridge that you leave for weeks on end to travel on extravagant boats. But, I know you see us. There are five photos in your wallet. Us guys and your favorite granddaughter. You also write poetry for all your grandchildren on their birthday. You write poetry. You speak Spanish. Who does your photo look like?
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