Trout fishing for democracy

Herman Sutter

November 8, 2024

I cast my vote—like I would a lure

tossed into a lake

in search of something 

or someone

curious enough to ask:

What is this?

My vote is a question asked

in the privacy of hope

and sent with a flick of a wrist

gliding into the mist 

where it drops with a soft

slurp into the cold 

dark of distance

as I shiver near the shore

and wait to see

will any ripples form

and if they do

will they even notice me?

Herman Sutter (award-winning poet/playwright/essayist) is the author of Stations (Wiseblood Books), The World Before Grace (Wings Press), and “The Sorrowful Mystery of Racism,” St. Anthony Messenger. His work appears in The Perch (Yale University), The Ekphrastic Review, The Langdon Review, Touchstone, i.e., The Merton Journal, as well as: Texas Poetry Calendar (2021) & By the Light of a Neon Moon (Madville Press, 2019). His recent manuscript A Theology of Need was long-listed for the Sexton Prize.