Going to the Polls with Mother

Tori— This has been a prose poem, a free verse poem and also a several-stanza poem (rejected a couple of times.) I re-wrote the prose, added Haiku to make it a Haibun. (As I understand it, the haiku are supposed to be a different subject —usually something in nature—but the feeling should relate to the theme of the prose. I’m hoping it’s publishable now? I want to include it in my collection too.

Going to the Polls with Mother

The gray-tiled floor smelled of sweeping compound, there was a wooden stage to the left and basketball hoops on either end of the room. She was presented with a paper ballot after giving her name and address to the poll worker. We walked across the gym to a wood-framed booth with a navy blue curtain. She pulled the drape aside, stood at a shelf, grasped the yellow pencil tied to a long string, and then closed the curtain behind her. Secret ballot, she said, I was not allowed to look (even though I was too young to read.)

String of ducklings
follows the mallard
upriver

When absentee ballots are brought to the dining room at Woodside Manor, Mother, age ninety-one, is the first one in line. Her table mates grumble, We’re too old, we don’t care anymore. Mother bristles, explains why they need to know their candidates and vote, marks her ballot, and leaves the room.

Black bear
leads her cubs
to ripe berries