‘Election Day’
— Nix Thérèse
I love when a poem can blend two seemingly separate or disparate ideas into one interwoven & nuanced point-of-view. The sense of the domestic falling apart adds tension to the larger context of election day because they define home on multiple scales. How do you feel comfortable when outside forces try to take your livelihood?
Even from the opening, there’s a sense of inevitability: “If we woke to water rot, / fallen oak crossbeam / bisecting the breakfast table, // a nest of ants shattered / like a chandelier on tile, / I could hardly fault the architect.” The speaker knows that their family’s solution for killing the ants won’t be forever sustainable, but in fact, could take the whole house down. But this only partially effective homemade remedy is what they’ve got, and they run with it. I’ve heard my aunt in a more rural part of Louisiana woke up one morning with her comforter almost completely covered in ants and just the retelling had my skin crawling. So, I bit my nails at the options: have your home be inhospitable now or later. Who can fault them for choosing to dispel the ants now instead of themselves?
One of my favorite parts of the poem comes almost halfway through: “Tio Carlos / keeps saying, ‘honesty // is a jail cell, crooks the wardens,’ / as election ads preen television screens / with images of grandmothers.” It’s clear that these politicians are trying to appeal to the emotions of their constituents by implying they’ll show deference to their elders by sustaining them. Yet, this is not a news story where we see the candidates reaching back out to their communities and discussing future plans. Rather these are planned & marketable dispatches to the public. The keyword for me is “preen”, aka putting your best face forward while shying away from less than favorable light. If honesty is guarded by crooked wardens, you can bet they keep their jail cell locked and in sight. If they’re the ants slowly overtaking this country, they’re going to multiply while the citizens can only vote & protest to the best of their abilities.
The last lines are somewhat ambiguous in blending issues of the domestic and political: “a thin line scorches / a perimeter surrounding the house, / as if slowly cutting us out / of the country like a torn elbow patch, / dead ants in lines.” If this family’s willingness to tackle issues head-on also coincides with some fervor for honesty in politics, they’re a seeming anomaly in this country of crooks. They, in fact, may be the ants dead in the end. Yet, we need these defenders who say, “I’ll soak my house to the bone if it means being safe from those who want to harm us.” We need this family cutting themselves out of the overarching country to stay intact. This wrecked home is still a home, and these small victories are still victories.