Role-Playing

Role-Playing 

While I was
mailing letters

at the local
post office,

the neighborhood 

postal clerk
told me

How much
she enjoyed

Seeing the two
and three year-old
boys and girls

From the pre-
school next door

Come in most
Friday mornings 

Many years ago.

She said they 

were always

Safely bound together 
by well-wrought 

Colorful,
walking ropes 

And came in
to select stickers, 

Usually 

“First Class”
“Express”
“Next Day”
or “Priority”

to stick on
their foreheads
and slight arms

While laughing
and carrying on 

as toddlers

often did.

She said she grew
particularly fond  

of a quiet petite girl

With red hair
and reddish freckles

Who never smiled,
never made eye contact 

Always had
her arms crossed

and never spoke
a word

Except to ask for
stickers marked

“Fragile-Handle
With Care.”

The clerk told me

the little girl later 

Played the parts 

Of shy and cautious,

Coy and self-effacing, 

Skittish and circumspect

Characters
in films

After she became
an international
movie star.

  

Gil Hoy

Gil Hoy is a Boston poet and semi-retired trial lawyer studying poetry at Boston University through its Evergreen program. Hoy previously received a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from Boston University, an M.A. in Government from Georgetown University, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He served as a Brookline, Massachusetts Selectman for four terms. Hoy’s poetry has appeared most recently in Chiron Review, Ariel Chart, The New Verse News, Social Justice Poetry, The Potomac, The Penmen Review and elsewhere.