Chrysanthemum Tran

“It was my first apartment ever in my life, and I was in my 50s,” Jay Toole tells me. “Twenty times a day, I’d go to the mailbox and open it. Because I had a fucking key, you know. And I’d never had a key or a mailbox in my life.” “Did you like getting mail?” I ask her. “Oh yeah,” she says. “But it didn’t matter. Sundays, I’d be there. Because it was mine, and I could do that.” We both share a laugh at checking the mail on a Sunday.

One answer lies in the Stonewall, when, in the heat of collective oppression, a motley band of outcasts chose to fight side by side. By Justice Ameer Gaines and Chrysanthemum Tran Today 9:50 am fb tw mail Print msg wa sms Members of the LGBTQ community in London suspend a banner from Vauxhall Bridge in protest of Trump. (Sipa USA via AP Images) On the eve of our first Pride, we came out to each other as women.

Struck with a stick a knowledge inside me shifts, clicks. Seen by a snake I become again. As if pulling kumquats, golden delicious, blackberries, taro root. Each empty of its sugar, of any juice. I took a name—Lydia, Prudence, opposites—and whispered it in the ear of the wind. I traced myself in peppermint oil, for protection. Torqued each leaf into place. During the storm, each room filled with water, a jar always brimming. An escape from daily pronouns.