~
I Was at the Four Seasons, but I Kept My Mouth Shut
I may be dead, but even I can tell that man
should not be the leader of a democracy, and so
I voted for the other guy. Really, to be frank,
both are close enough to their ends that they
should be pastured in tenderest sweet grass.
You say I should not vote, should not be franchised
as the living, but I say why not. This country is
a kingdom of the dead, all parties hanging on the words
of founding fathers and dead prophets, reading
their intentions like smoke from burnt offerings,
like bird bones tossed and tossed again—from edict
to allegory, a heavy fog. Most of us
do not vote—the newly dead too stunned by their change
in station, the others lose interest in the face
of pleasures or torments now upon them—
but some of us do. We look back, haunted, hungry,
and lay our fingers on the scale once more and press
ourselves to life. And why not? It costs us nothing
and we know things we did not know before,
the past completely open to us, no secrets,
no redactions in the afterlife. Here they have
begun a new cul-de-sac of molten gold
with a liquid, multi-floor tower, all bubble
and gleam. Nothing is impossible here.
I am sure you can guess the neighborhood.
So, anyway, I voted for the other guy.
~
Cecil Morris
Cecil Morris lives in Roseville, California, where he taught high school English for 37 years. In his retirement, he has turned his attention to writing what he once taught students to understand and (maybe) enjoy. He has poems appearing in Cobalt Review, Evening Street Review, Hiram Review, Hole in the Head Review, Midwest Quarterly, Poem, Talking River Review,and other literary magazines. Right now, he might be reading a novel by Louise Erdrich or poetry by Sharon Olds (or David Kirby or Tony Hoagland or Maggie Smith) or giving thanks for his indulgent partner, the mother of their children.