It’s not the first time I’ve voted
but it is the first time
it has felt like a funeral — faces
grim, strained
looking down at phones
as the long line winds around the corner
(corners) and the cold November wind
whips dead leaves whirling
down the sidewalk.
Yet, this isn’t the saddest thing
about this day. That, instead,
is the empty preschool playground
I stand beside; the sun-bleached
picnic table picnic-less since March,
the fence leaning, the swing-set empty,
the imagined children’s voices.