Calendar pages flip,
election day draws closer,
pomp and circumstance grows cacophonous,
and I withdraw —
like the groundhog who sees his shadow
and scurries back into his burrow.
Six more weeks of press and pundits…
Two candidates as different as rice and potatoes…
And when I emerge in November,
will my grandmother still say
“dirty Jews”? Will my ex-mother-in-law still think
“Russians don’t value life like us”?
Change drips slowly from the spigot of youth
and time. But Election Day 2060
will find the groundhog waking yet again
to a war, a famine,
a man striking another man
because he is afraid.