Census

By JK Miller

Birth: I was born with buttocks intact, thank God, in Ann Arbor, the same place my grandfather once, in the amphitheater of the medical school, showing off his speed in delivering a baby by cesarean, sliced the baby’s buttocks with his scalpel.

Race: What am I? My grandparents on my mother’s side immigrated from Spain and settled in California. Clearly they were Hispanic. Is Hispanic a race or an ethnicity? Am I Hispanic? On my father’s side, they came from Sweden and settled in the Upper Peninsula. What are Swedes? They are white butt slicers.  

Jobs: I worked twenty-three jobs, including lawn mower and apple picker, before settling into a career as a dual language teacher, showing children how to stick their tongues between their teeth and blow, to distinguish that from dat.

Current employment status: I retired after one too many children approached me, holding a laptop like a shrimp platter, wanting to “search it up”. My device be glitching, they said. I realized I felt the same way. And, they all wanted to feel my elbow skin flap.

I am not deaf, but more and more people around me mumble. 

I am not blind, but street lights at night can make me stumble.

I can walk up and down stairs by myself. I am not humble.

I do not receive any food stamps, disability payments or social security.

I like to think of my small teacher pension as a Genius Grant.

I make poems.

JK Miller is a seventy something poet and storyteller, a former third grade dual language teacher, who lives in the Village of Kirkland, Illinois, on the edge of cornfields. He recently finished a solo 23 day, 1,335 mile bike ride from his house to his son’s house near New York City. He went there to see his new baby grandson.