The Ode Not Taken
The year the Redskins won the Superbowl, I was
a freshman in high school. Let out of class,
we took the subway into DC and emerged downtown.
We bought maroon and gold t-shirts. I never saw
any parade though, or any of the crack cocaine, but there was a young
black prostitute on 14th Street, very skinny, who bought
small Diet Cokes all day from the carry-out.
I looked out through my face the whole time and,
as usual, the tip of my white nose was always in
frame. When they first moved the team to Washington, they
could have changed the name, made it a celebration
of muscle, fight, and the hail Mary pass.
The flying those men did! But
they kept the slur, made a song of it.
Every time you say the name, it means
exactly what you think it means.
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