Pledge 2020

Carol Coffee Reposa

October 20, 2020

On November 3

I will coat

My hands

With sanitizer,

Put on

My heaviest mask

And drive

To the polls.

There I will cast a ballot

For the knee

Lifted from George Floyd’s neck,

For a corner diner in Ferguson

Where cops and locals

Sit down

Together

For chilidogs and beer.

I will vote

For lead-free pipes

In Flint,

For skies swept clear

Of greenhouse gas,

For rivers and seas

Flowing beyond

Plastic and sewage.

I will endorse

Refugee children removed

From their cages and returned

To their mothers’ arms,

The right of anyone

To see a doctor,

The resurrection

Of truth and fact. 

But most of all

On that great day

I will stand and say

Yes to restoration

Of the one institution

Walt Whitman ever praised,

That grand institution

Nearly lost,

“The dear love of comrades.” 

The poems, reviews and essays of Carol Coffee Reposa have appeared in The Atlanta Review, Southwestern American Literature, Valparaiso Review, The Texas Observer, and other journals and anthologies.  Author of five books of poetry, member of the Texas Institute of Letters, four-time Pushcart Prize nominee, and winner of the 2015 San Antonio Public Library Arts & Letters Award, she is the 2018 Texas Poet Laureate.