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Column 858

1st VOTE

08.30.2021

It’s been some months since our last elec­tion, but it is always good to be remind­ed, in this poem by Kami­lah Aisha Moon, of how pre­cious and hard-won the right to vote and the act of vot­ing are.

1st VOTE

It was hers.
She had this choice
behind curtained bliss,
Dad’s chest full on the other side
as her tapered hand
pulled the lever.

No matter how wide
the final margin,
a lone ballot
never counted so much.

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We do not accept unsolicited submissions

We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2013 by Kamilah Aisha Moon, “1st Vote” from She Has a Name (Four Way Books, 2013.) Poem reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.