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As I watch Hillary make her way through the hotel ballroom,
I think of my mother, gone now twenty years. How thrilled
she would have been to be here. Beneath crystal chandeliers,
between tables filled with uneaten finger sandwiches and scones,
I feel my mother’s hand pressing into mine, pushing me to lean
over the stanchions as I wait. Even though guards glare, I reach
out to touch Hillary, to shake her hand as she passes by on
the plush carpet. Smiling in her brilliant red suit, she talks
to each of us as she approaches her daughter already at the podium,
I hear my mother’s voice whisper, ‘Keep going, Hillary,’ (or maybe
it was mine) or one of the other thousand voices as she moves
along the aisle surrounded by ten huge secret service men
with earpieces. Obama won last time; now this time must be
her time. ‘Revved up and rarin’ to go,’ Barbara Mikulski shouts
from a platform box that lifts her tiny figure toward the microphone
as the room goes wild. We have waited lifetimes to see a woman
do this. Seventy years of marching to get the vote, more than another
ninety working towards this moment. It’s Hillary’s turn; it has to be
Hillary’s turn. Not for me alone, but for the joy my mother would
have had holding my hand shaking Hillary’s hand.
Davi Walders is the author of three poetry books.