Joan E. Bauer: Progress Street

For Halloween in 1960, I dressed as an election booth

festooned with Kennedy stickers & buttons.

If you’re a woman over 60 & someone says

‘coat hanger,’ you don’t just think: laundry.

All those folks who didn’t vote, thinking: No worries.

They’re awake now.

Black paint on an old stone house.

Juden Juden. Having that nightmare too?

Take out your blue & red pens. Mark the passages.

Fact in blue, opinion in red. Is that so hard?

Maybe we all need a national civics course

taught by someone we’ll listen to. Volunteers?

Tomorrow I’m meeting an old friend. We’ll fortify

our sorrow with coffee & home fries.

Mullin’s Diner, North Side. 16th Street Bridge,

left on Progress Street.

If you’re not watchful, you’ll miss the turn.

Joan E. Bauer is a poet and activist who lives in Pittsburgh.

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