Hope Floats, Yes?

Ulf Kirchdorfer

October 16, 2020

To vote, or not to vote: What does that really say

about my life, as I know I must dispense with the King

who has orange hair and face color to match.

That I even worry about writing “kill” and tone down,

like “collateral damage,” speaks more than the six

monologues and hither and dither I have exposed

millions to over the years. O King, how I hate your

sty actions in bed outside the marriage, love the name

Stormy, loathe your row of all the King’s men lingering

like Polonius, a rat I pierced and pricked into when I spoke,

summoned for my madness in wondering how to set

things right in Elsinore. We did not have the gates

you offer with barricades; a moat and draw bridge

were our pleasure, and things were simple then,

having few choices, and as I approach the voting

machine now, Dane-American, I summon courage

to vote and think scarfed in my sea gown I can change

the fate of me and King’s men traveling on a ship

that is tossed in waves and nausea waiting to find

a still harbor or to go aground. Hope floats, yes?

Ulf Kirchdorfer's book of poems, Hamlet in Exile, is forthcoming from Lamar University Literary Press. When Ulf is not living in the land of poetry, he ventures out into the woods where he photographs birds.