ISSUE: Summer 2018
The election is over, but we trudge back to the phone bank with our clipboards and scripts. We can still dial the swing states. North Carolina, Florida, Nevada: Can we count on you? Have a blesséd evening!
As in the last days, no one will answer.
Huge room abandoned by an army. Folded banners. Butts float in styrofoam cups. We had a 93 percent chance.
This late, traffic dwindles, you hear the sirens of the city so clearly: Maimonides, Saint Luke, Methodist. The pulse in the mind. A child in the opposing tenement howls with laughter, then sobs.
Once we had arguments prepared on entitlement reform, Syria, carried income tax. But the few voices we reached were exhausted. Husband in a truss, son in solitary. Friend, foe. Static from the cosmos on an empty line.
Almost midnight. We dial high school sweethearts, imaginary lovers, dead parents. Jack, Bobby, Malcolm, Martin, Fred Hampton, Mark Clark.
Soft fury of night snow behind high blinds.
Ohio! Are you with us?
