for a creative writing job.  At the time,
I was doing security where all of the guys,

except me, wore bulletproof vests, but
I couldn’t afford one and you had to buy it

yourself, so I just figured if I got shot, it
would be meant to be, and so a creative

writing job would have been like winning
the lottery, but they told me that they

weren’t hiring any white males and I
said I was mixed and they said, “What?”

and I said I was mixed, and they said
they thought I was white and I said I’m

poor too, and they said that poor doesn’t
count, and I asked them if it’s OK if I’m

mixed and they said five hundred people
had applied for the job and I asked how

I made it this far and they said they liked
my poems and one woman on the hiring

committee said, “Except they lack grace,”
and I said, “What’s grace?”  And she said,

“Exactly.  It’s nowhere near what’s in your
poems.”  And I asked what grace was, as I

wasn’t understanding, and they basically
said it’s a Christian term meaning that you

won the lottery and I told them that if I can
get a job with no bullets anywhere near my

body, then every poem I ever write again
will probably be jam-packed full of grace,

but they didn’t hire me.

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Image: “anthropomorphic pill study 1” by Nicole Monroe