by J.A. Tyler
UPSIDE DOWN my dad says and I know he means Australia because that is where I know these kangaroos come from. We read the sign last time and I remember, the map of Australia and the cartoon kangaroos drawn all over it.
IS THAT THE ONLY PLACE THEY LIVE my mom asks and my dad he nods his head up and down to say yes but says it out loud anyway.
YEP.
And she smiles and shakes her head and says THAT’S FUN.
I don’t know what she means. That maybe kangaroos in Australia and nowhere else are fun, and my dad is making the same look with his eyebrows that I am making with mine, confused. I can see it on his face and I can feel it in mine, how all the muscles get tight and it is like I am trying to bring my forehead down into my mouth, to chew on its wide smooth skin.
The kangaroos don’t hop around like they do on the tv, when I see them in cartoons, running up and down and boxing each other in the face. They mostly are just standing eating leaves and branches or down on their sides, sleeping, where we can see what look like ribs going up and down as they breathe.
They are not fun to watch, these kangaroos.
UP HIGHER my dad says, me touching the star to the top, the tree shining. HIGHER he says and I know that my ribs can probably stretch just a little more so that I can put it where he wants, up on the top of the tree, perfectly straight and tall.
YES he says and my dad and me both smile at the tree and don’t look at each other. I think I am learning that sons and dads don’t always have to look at each other, that sometimes looking in opposite directions is just what we are supposed to be doing.
And in the morning when I am opening presents and my dad’s eyes look like baggage my mom says COFFEE like she is asking a questions and my mom says ROBERT, IT’S CHRISTMAS because he said NO SHIT in between and I laughed without even looking at the two of them, my parents, shoving each other around with their words.
The kangaroos all napping like maybe the sun isn’t as hot in Australia as it is here.
CUTE THOUGH my mom says, reading our minds, my dad and me, both of us looking at the grass and the dirt and the branches and the leaves and the kangaroos not doing anything.
And YEP is what I say back, reading my dad’s mind and saying it before he can, that they are cute and we are sometimes okay just looking at these boring ones.
YOU WANT TO GO AUSTRALIA my dad asks us both and we smile, my mom at me and me back at her, our mouths saying yes with the way we show our teeth, and the turn of our faces knowing that he is just kidding and in the mornings, like when we are up early with the bows and the ribbons, he is still going to use words that my mom will yell at him for and he will be more like a bear than anything else that is at this zoo, sometimes big paws and sometimes more like the claws that are on the ends of his fingers, ready to cut open our throats sometimes, my mom and me, us walking here in this zoo.
Ed Note: Be sure to tune in tomorrow for our interview with J.A. Tyler.
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J. A. Tyler is the author of SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE (ghost road press, 2009) and IN LOVE WITH A GHOST (willows wept press, 2010) as well as the chapbooks OUR US & WE (greying ghost), ZOO: THE TROPIC HOUSE (sunnyoutside), EVERYONE IN THIS IS EITHER DYING OR WILL DIE OR IS THINKING OF DEATH (achilles), and THE GIRL IN THE BLACK SWEATER (trainwreck press) . He is also founding editor of mud luscious / ml press.
