Election Night
—November 7, 2000
I do my best to ignore
the U.S. government
but I was listening to the results
coming in through my car radio
as I made the drive from
Oakland to Arizona
the exit polls were saying
Democrat
and then it was too close to call
and then Republican
maybe
and I came across a roadblock
on a stretch of two-lane
between Mojave
and Barstow
red and blue lights flashing
highway patrolmen everywhere
there had been a major accident
a few miles up the road
they weren’t letting anyone
through till morning
and the best possible detour
would take me at least
100 miles out of my way
so I pulled into the parking lot
of a roadside motel
and an Indian woman answered the bell
at the lobby door
which was really no lobby at all
just a room where she appeared to live
and I noticed over her shoulder
a shrine with a picture of
Shirdi Sai Baba
who was the guru of whores
and drug addicts
cripples
criminals
midgets
and misfits of all shapes and sizes
and I said Are you a devotee of Shirdi Sai Baba?
and she looked at me kind of sideways
and said You are familiar with Shirdi Sai Baba?
and I said Sure he’s my kind of saint
and she quoted me $35
for the night
which I thought was fair
considering the number of trucks and cars
rapidly lining up
all over the sides of the road
and then she showed me
to the room
a significant piece of the
front window gone
and covered with cardboard
two holes in one of the walls
the approximate size of a raging fist
there was a heater on the wall
the size of a human body
which I would soon discover
worked at only one speed
high
so the choice was either
hot or cold
not an easy decision
with the November wind
creeping in
and I woke up several times
throughout the night
to turn the heater on
or off
and took the opportunity
each time
to click on the television
and see who the next president
might be
and so by morning I knew
that all bets were off
they were talking about
recounting Florida
and I left the key in the room
and walked next door
to the jam-packed and buzzing gas station diner
where I found a seat at the counter
and ordered hash browns eggs and toast
and overheard a trucker telling
a group of truckers
how two trucks had met head on
at the precise moment that
one truck had pulled out
to pass another
both drivers dead instantly
and by the time I finished my breakfast
they had opened the road
and back in my car
the controversy and mudslinging
had begun
experts and non-experts
weighing in on
uncounted and miscounted votes
misleading ballots
roadblocks in Black neighborhoods
Black voters scratched from registration lists
everybody arguing
over everything
and a few miles on
I came across
the mangled and charred remains
of what were once
tractor trailers
gutted and twisted like the spines
of two brontosauruses slaughtered
still smoking on the side of the road
as I drove by into the lies
that made America.
After publishing a few dozen poems and short stories in the late 90s and early aughts, Johnny Cordova dropped out of the literary scene for 17 years. Now he’s back. Recent work has appeared in Chicago Quarterly Review, Chiron Review, Louisiana Literature, Nerve Cowboy, New York Quarterly, Salt Hill Journal, Slipstream, and elsewhere. He lives at Triveni Ashram, in north central Arizona, where he co-edits Sho Poetry Journal with his wife, Dominique Ahkong. His website is johnnycordova.com
