Written for Election Day, November 8, 2016
My student texts:
So excited. First time I voted!
Mazel tov, I respond,
in my best Mandarin,
–thinking of her young daughter,
brilliant with possibilities, and autistic son,
possibly brilliant but impossibly stuck–
May you have chosen a winner for us all.
We lost, she texts me next day–
I’ll never vote again.
I cannot console except,
If we built this well and to last,
who knows, you may
get another chance.
