My Mother Goes to Vote
 
By 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.