Who is she, the woman whose blue eyes reach
out in ads, voice strong, hair blonde? Her clinic
at stake, she says a thousand lives beseech
me, the voter-hero, to Vote No. I remain the cynic.
Draped with red-filled tubes like snakes, a man bids me
Vote Yes! Gown-wrapped clients refer to unhygienic
rooms where unseen life forms lurk and kid me
not. Gloves, urine, needles, machines, puddles,
fill my mind along with missing kidneys,
those pulsing beans now shriveled, blood now muddled.
I die without dialysis, a man’s voice proclaims.
My barre-toned back holds twin flesh-cuddled
organs pulsing, cleaning. This vote-luring campaign
forms paths and forks that twist and feel the same.
T R Poulson lives in San Carlos, California. Her work has appeared previously in TheNewVerse.News, along with Rattle’s Poets Respond, Verdad, Trajectory, J Journal, The Meadow, Delaware Review, and Raintown Review. She enjoys windsurfing, basketball, and horse racing.