Stamps

Back when I was nearly blameless and could visit the zoo

and admire the tigers not for what they actually were,

but as monstrous man-eaters that deserved to be caught.

Back when I thought I had already tasted life's worst

disappointment, because I'd fallen in love right after college

and it hadn't worked out. Back when every attractive man—

gay or straight, it didn't matter yet—getting off the bus

caught my eye, I was a Republican. And I went to work

in Washington D.C., and met all the suited villains

I'd been warned about. Still reading about Goldwater's

conscience. Thrilled by the idea of bombs. Strangling

themselves in Limbaugh's neckties. Certain our own

country needed to stage a coup. (Clinton in the White House

doing what Clinton did.) One day, I set off to buy

a thousand dollars worth of stamps. The stuffing

of envelopes would soon follow. The best way to get

money is to send a letter and ask for it, they said. Halfway

to the post office, a breathless boy chased me down.

Red-faced. Panicked. His dizzying tie swung over his shoulder.

He told me what my boss had forgotten to say. We can't

use stamps with women or black people on them. The world

toppled me that day in a business park—so young

and dumb—I left in an instant to become who I really am.

Source: Half-Hazard (2018)