Transcript

I’m Ada Limón and this is The Slowdown.

The other day someone I know posted a quote from the poet Mary Oliver, “Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?” And I almost began to cry. I kept thinking of how scared I’ve been, how scared many of us have been during these years of the pandemic. And of course it’s not just the pandemic, it’s so many overwhelming existential fears. I read that quote and I suddenly longed for breath. For relief. For the end of fear.

In today’s poem we see the speaker investigate fear and consequences in a world where danger comes in many different forms.

Get Out of the Water
by Monica Rico

My uncle	   keeps
	    his birth certificate	    in his trunk
			                so when
he gets		        pulled over      he can prove      he was born   in the United States.

He calls my father to say, They want us dead.
	    Who?			      All of them.

My uncle	    won’t wear a mask
	    it happened on what day     of what month
		               he stretched        his hand in the dark of the movie theater	 and dipped
	    into my father’s 	           popcorn. He ate it all       without asking.

My father wants		               a picture	     of what I look like,
bandana around my face.	Before I go to the grocery
	    he says,		                       When your uncle went back to the store,
		       the white woman	       next to him
			                said she didn’t have to wear a mask
				                       and they let her in	   just like that.
	
	    I’ve had a headache since
the pines turned yellow		           and can’t stop
		                      thinking about	                 how frightened I was

when my mother took me to see Jaws.

It isn’t scary,       my sister said,
		                   if you stay	           out of the water.
				                    But they don’t,	           not until a little white boy dies.
		                  Then    his people			       begin to believe
	           their vacation   might be	  ruined or more accurately
they did not	     recognize their beach.
				                             The horror of Jaws
is not the rows of teeth,		        but the endless sea
		     	                   of white faces               who are afraid
 	                of losing money	     knowing the ocean
	                               has always been full of sharks, blood, and everything else they cannot see.
My uncle	        can’t picture	   	  Adam and Eve
            were ever      naked. He got angry      with me
	                  as he always does       and told me
		                         I didn’t know     what I was     talking about.
Were they       in bathing suits,        standing at the edge of the water
			                                   go in,
			                                   no you go in,
			                                   I’ll go in if you go in.
                            What shark	      eagerly awaits	         to breach
                or keeps       swimming and thinks,
                                                                            I know all about you.

At the grocery,
               my bandana falls	      down when I	    pull the carts apart.
                                 I can hear my uncle laugh,        his too many teeth.
               Hands in         my father’s
                                       popcorn 	    and across his	          sleeping face.

Next to me,
                              a man has six bags	    of potato chips, a twelve pack of beer,       and eight steaks.
                              I can’t find	      a chicken. I can’t remember       what to buy.
                 Shark   attacks often     happen in shallow water.
                                          I’ve always been	                the dog,
				                        the owner calls for	    and doesn’t notice
                         the stick	
				                         floating, not even
			                 the electromagnetic      field
			    	                         surges a muddy outline		 of what I
know. 			 	                 Rupture	    the stomach
                                           and find the same license plate,
				                          milk carton,        and arm	       of the city still wearing its watch.

"Get Out of the Water" by Monica Rico. Used by permission of the poet.