Monday, November 17, 2008

EXIT POLL

by Scot Siegel


I had a dream
we were sweating bullets

Oakland. 1973
soul-music-afro-sheen

Nixon. Panthers
Grandmother

Didn't trust
blacks

Called them
shvartzes --

*

Twenty years
grandma dead

Now I wonder how
she would have cast

Her ballot:
white/black

Bush administration
says fear

Is our greatest asset.
Waged war

For war's sake.
Said:
be afraid


*

Today, I keep
pinching myself,

Wanting to believe
my grandmother

Lied. I pinch myself
until I bleed

Black blood
blood of our brothers

Blood of our sisters:
Black. Brown. Yellow. Jew --

Blot my eyes
with the rest of you --

Overcome, and
wet with joy


Scot Siegel is an urban planner and poet from Lake Oswego, Oregon where he serves on the Lake Oswego City Planning Commission and the Board of Trustees for The Friends of William Stafford. His first full-length poetry collection Some Weather is forthcoming in 2009 from Plain View Press.
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