My mother always allowed me
to buy any book
from the little metal rack 
at the grocery store 
in our small town 
in Southwest Virginia.

She monitored my television.
I was never allowed to watch
Threes Company,
Soap,
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, 
but I could choose any book from that rack. 

It was called The Dancers of Arun.
There was a sex scene 
that I read obsessively, 
the parts that described their bodies, 
the feelings they were experiencing, 
the pleasures they were receiving.
I must have read it a dozen—
a hundred times.

The cover art fascinated me.
It was an illustration of a man, 
dancing naked in the woods, 
bathed in moonlight, 
just enough light to see 
the muscles of his arms, 
the shape of his legs. 

I searched the art for more meaning. 
I read the scene for more clarity.
I found a clue as to who I was. 
I needed more. 
I read the scene again.
I tried to move on, 
to read more of the book, 
but the rest, 
without the sex, 
was torture. 

I was on the precipice of understanding.
I sensed an answer
to a question 
I didn’t even know to ask.
The answer was in this book.

I found, 
what I had not been told,
what had been kept from me, 
what my school avoided mentioning, 
what my mother desperately ignored.

I discovered a part of my identity, 
the deepest, 
most fundamental 
piece of me that I never 
possessed the words to describe.
I owned the words now,
I would no longer be confused, 
not now, 
not after this novel, 
not after The Dancers of Arun. 
It was clear—
finally, I knew 
why I never wanted a girlfriend,
why I dreamed of Robbie Benson,
not Farrah Fawcett, 
why the men’s sections of catalogues
made me very aware of certain things
that I simply could not explain—
things I didn’t understand.

Thanks to a book from 
the wire rack
next to the paper towels
in the grocery store—
I finally knew who I was …

I was a dancer.