My Mother Goes to Vote

- Judith Harris

We walked five blocks

to the elementary school,

my mother’s high heels

crunching through playground gravel.

We entered through a side door.

Down the long corridor,

decorated with Halloween masks,

health department safety posters—

we followed the arrows

to the third grade classroom.

My mother stepped alone

into the booth, pulling the curtain behind her.

I could see only the backs of her

calves in crinkled nylons.

A partial vanishing, then reappearing

pocketbook crooked on her elbow,

our mayor’s button pinned to her lapel.

Even then I could see—to choose

is to follow what has already

been decided.

We marched back out

finding a new way back down streets

named for flowers

and accomplished men.

I said their names out loud, as we found

our way home, to the cramped house,

the devoted porch light left on,

the customary meatloaf.

I remember, in the classroom converted

into a voting place—

there were two mothers, conversing,

squeezed into the children’s desk chairs.

from: Night Garden, Copyright 2013.

The Discipline of Craft, Easter Morning

- Judith Harris

No use going hunting for angels,
for a Christ in the tree-mops,
a Moses winding his way up the mount
into the fire of God’s fresh stubble.
There is just a serious rain,
a steady crutch for the air,
colder than any April should be.
I am up to my neck in chores:
the cat needs more food,
my daughter’s clutter piles up like ant hills,
I fold her little sleeves, ghost by ghost.
What melody springs from the heart so well?
These lone trees can’t be dazzled by sun today,
they have such tremors like the Pope’s.
Lost loons pitched into sky folds,
their crusty buds just blinking
as if to test how fierce the light is.
They sag and meander from their stems,
they bleed from transparency.
Needless or hopeless, as overused fountains,
they are my metrics, my fortitude;
plants with lemony grass spigots
that will never go dry.

from: The Bad Secret: Poems.

The Discipline of Craft, Easter Morning

   by Judith Harris

No use going hunting for angels,


for a Christ in the tree-mops,


a Moses winding his way up the mount
in

to the fire of God’s fresh stubble.
 

There is just a serious rain,


a steady crutch for the air,


colder than any April should be.
I am up to my neck in chores:


the cat needs more food,


my daughter’s clutter piles up like ant hills,


I fold her little sleeves, ghost by ghost.


What melody springs from the heart so well?
 

These lone trees can’t be dazzled by sun today,


they have such tremors like the Pope’s.


Lost loons pitched into sky folds,


their crusty buds just blinking
as 

if to test how fierce the light is.
 

They sag and meander from their stems,


they bleed from transparency.


Needless or hopeless, 

as overused fountains,


they are my metrics, my fortitude;


plants with lemony grass spigots


that will never go dry.

from: The Bad Secret: Poems by Judith Harris. Copyright 2005.