ELECTION DAY
It began with the belief
(foolishly misguided)
that the slaves hadn’t learned how to talk,
that they didn’t know,
couldn’t know,
that what they longed for
(as all of us)
was the cold satisfaction
of assembling,
building, collecting,
just for the chance to tear apart.
It was election day.
We were electing
our replacements. A voice
from the mob
shouted “Here they come!”
and then “The soldiers! The soldiers!”
We all put down our ballots
and applauded,
tearfully thinking of the distant battles,
the dusty mountains,
how the beginning of war
is always a myth, just as its end,
how even the present is unrecognizable
as it leaves you.
One of the men
waved a twisted branch
that stuck from his cuff
in place of a hand;
another, as a gesture
of generosity,
gaped his impossibly empty mouth,
which was a cave,
so all of us
and our children too
could hear our voices
inside of him: hesitant,
sorrowful, diminishing. |