Elaine Sexton
(Not) Looking Forward to the Election, 2020
October loses, then chooses focus. Last year’s
Chinese lanterns, come back,
stay inflated, bright orange
on the vine for a very long time. A few hang in there,
well past their prime. The weather keeps insisting that
withering and dying are seasonal, natural, nothing to be afraid of.
We know this to be true. Migrating monarch butterflies
swan through the yard. One lands on my hair
unaware of the drama in the garden, in the trees, that it will take her
three generations to come back
from where she is headed. The last of the heirloom
cherry tomatoes split open, bees sack the sap of pin oaks and pines.
Maple leaves, having achieved the spectacle of photosynthesis
inaugurate another grand stand. They are willing to give up their lives
for prosperity, progeny. Our neighbors would like to
stop justice in its tracks
but can’t. The only thing keeping me from pulling up stakes
is their hate. Civility. We count down. We count down.
—Submitted on October 13, 2020
Elaine Sexton is the author of the poetry collections Sleuth (New Issues Poetry and Prose, 2003), Causeway (New Issues Poetry and Prose, 2008), and Prospect/Refuge (Sheep Meadow Press, 2015). Her poetry, prose, and visual art have appeared in journals and anthologies, textbooks, and websites including American Poetry Review, Art in America, Poetry, O! the Oprah Magazine, and Poetry Daily. An avid book maker and micro-publisher, Sexton has curated many site-specific events with accompanying limited-edition chapbooks, and periodicals, among them Hair and 2 Horatio. A member of the Writing Institute faculty at Sarah Lawrence College, Sexton serves as the visual arts editor for Tupelo Quarterly, and is a member of the National Book Critics Circle.
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