Papered

Vincent Hostak

October 13, 2024

We shouldn’t favor the odds.  After all,

paper fails one out of three conflicts.

In all fairness, neither rock nor scissors 

served our transactions any better.

Today we walk freely on the peaceable path 

together resembling two felt-topped Quakers 

clutching our ballots like precious babes

with glue still fresh on our tongues.

In times even stranger than these,

if one had any identity at all,

it was papered, assured by white skin.

If one had a vote, he had land, she: neither.

Yards from the courthouse, we who

were never turned away, passing as privileged,

revisit lesser anxieties: Is the envelope sealed?

Did you remember to sign yours?

Tonight, we’ll probe an inherited symbol,

an ungainly bird splayed on a dollar bill.

Then, resisting its cluster of arrows,

we’ll sit and dine sweetly on its olives.

Vincent Hostak is a writer and media producer from Texas now living near the Front Range of Colorado south of Denver. His recently published poems are found in the journals Sonder Midwest and the Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas and as a contributor to the TPA. He writes & produces the podcast: Crossings-the Refugee Experience in America.