election day

By Diane Vogel Ferri

Election day is a carnival ride of hope
and despair, each taking their fluctuating

turns. In the back yard, birds and squirrels
continue coexisting, while we, the supposedly

more evolved, battle through every November
and false ad. The downy woodpecker hammers

away at the side of the house and I don’t care
because she’s committed to her life, she saves some

insects for others and thanks me with her beauty.
I cannot betray the consciousness I’ve worked so hard

for, so election day terror is like waking up in the dark
as a child and calling for help but making no sound.

All I have now is the sound of a pen making a circle
of black ink on a piece of paper and these words.

Diane Vogel Ferri’s full-length poetry book is Everything is Rising. Her latest novel is No Life But This: A Novel of Emily Warren Roebling. Her essays have been published in The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Scene Magazine, and Braided Way Journal among others. Her poems can be found in numerous journals. Her previous publications are Liquid Rubies (poetry), The Volume of Our Incongruity (poetry), and The Desire Path (novel). Diane’s forthcoming poetry book, The Slow Journey to Totality will be published in 2024. Her poem, For You, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Best of the Net prize.

Photo credit: Ryan via a Creative Commons license.

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