Poem
Maxine Beneba Clarke
Ritual
so we’ll go to the polls
lined round winter street corners
pushy leafleteers
shoving how-tos in our hands
we’ll elbow past smiling placards
and straight-talking spruikers
still wearied with the bickering
of campaign attack ads
and they’ll broadcast first photos
of bill and scott voting
flanked by their young families
in we’re-humble-folk clothes
as workers trail their fingers
down long address columns
wielding black pen and ruler
to strike out our names
we’ll go cardboard-boothed
to the primary schools
community centres
and the churches to boot
and friendly neighbours
ideologically opposed
will avert their eyes
as they fold up their votes
some swayed by tax breaks
with resignation in their sighs
others nobly honouring
offshore lives
this one’s for the climate
and the stolen land
that voter says the liberals
just forced her hand
that one’s nationals know the country
she’s who-cares-who-wins
he just wants penny wong
as the foreign minister
and school parents will coin-change
at poll baking sales
as choc-crackle-smeared kids
run amuck at play
then on the way out
there’s the sausage sizzle
white bred, sauce, hold the onion
(with an abbott-joke giggle)
and we’re all heading home
to turn the box on
crack open a cold one
or champers with mum
as we watch the seats falling
to the blue or the red
and hope good old antony
calls before bed
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