I want to go for a hike, I say, pointing to the picture in National Geographic.
(I’m twelve, for context.)
My mom says, there are gorillas in the jungle.
Well duh, I say. Where else would gorillas be?
No, she said. Not that kind of gorilla.
Gorillas. They’re armed.
Okay, so they have arms, I said. It would be hard to get around the jungle without arms.
No, she says, getting frustrated. I mean like guns.
Why would the gorillas want guns? I said. Where would they get guns?
I don’t think you’re understanding what I am saying, she said.
These are not the gorillas you’re thinking of.
I go to sleep and I imagine what kind of “Planet of the Apes” situation my mom thinks is going on.
So the gorillas have guns. So the gorillas have a political agenda.
What do the gorillas want?
I think the gorillas want to form their own political party.
Le Bloc Gorilloise.
They want to be taught sign language and to be assigned human interpreters.
They want the children to learn sign language in schools so their interpreters will gradually become irrelevant.
They want a trilingual Canada.
They want a Canada, which is easily navigable for Anglophones, Francophones, the hearing impaired of both backgrounds, and gorillas.
They want universal healthcare.
They are eco-socialists.
They have guns temporarily but they are generally for tighter gun control.
They want to transfer away from single-use plastics.
They stand with Wet’suwet’en.
They want a rent freeze for as long as this pandemic lasts.
They think Justin Trudeau’s little beard looks stupid.
Stapleton Nash is a Vancouver Island poet and essayist. She has been published in Lunate, Mookychick, and Headline Poetry and Press, among other publications. You can find her on Twitter at @StapletonKNash.