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  • Translation depends, not on what must be included, but on what must not be left out
  • Marcela Sulak

after Idra Novey

You enter the country next door from under the stoneChurch of the Redeemer

subway exit. No Pork Chinese Restaurantand Mr. Chicken, flank the avenue

both strictly halal.The immigrant stories conclude happily

thus far: love at first sight endsin marriage. The NGO administrator

can finally quit the dead-endjob and be a stay-at-home mom, lobbying

to remove the ice-cream truck from the park.

The baby sons resemble their mothersor else their paternal grandfathers. Slender men in bright shirts

lean against shiny, long black sedans, smokingcigarettes. It is both the spawning grounds

and the death place of fiction.The little ones learn to become miniature

predators themselves, until they encounter othersof their own kind. An aggregation

is called a school.Visitors must check their own children

at baggage claim;are either conveniently

or conspicuouslybilingual,

depending on their income level.The average rainfall is silver

and distributed equally throughout the seasons.What the bible really says

instructors stand in neat skirts beside their docileplacards,waiting for you to ask them to dance.

There is no binary opposition — identity is where and what timeyou stand to put your make-up on,

relative to the points of time in spaceof those around you,

their handfuls of brightly colored plastic,their recession so slow you don't no

tice it at first. Polyphony is certainly possible, too,indeed, it is the preferred

method of communication, for the birdsare sky-bound at present.

The inhabitants are friendly and curious, and the militarycarry their cameras carelessly,

with the safeties off and the barrelsaimed haphazardly.

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