David Alexander

Personal reflection essay: politics
David Alexander

Sometimes I spend too much time reading
Wikipedia articles when I should be exercising
my democratic right to vote. So I drive to the nearest
polling station only to find it filled with children.
I join their dodgeball game and bean
everyone in the head until it is just me and a mean
sixth grader who beans me. I go home to
my other activism: watching hockey on the couch.
I get worked up about goalies’ great saves because
I too excel at getting in the way of things. One time
at a bar with Fraser and Marcella after work I watched
the Leafs play game 7 against the Boston Bruins. I could
feel the spirit of community action flow through me
as I sipped my Nut Brown beer. It felt good to finally
be part of something bigger, but then the Bruins scored
in overtime and everyone yelled and drank one more pint
and cried. And drivers honked their horns as we all walked
home.

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David Alexander is a Toronto poet and a non-profit leader. His poems have appeared in Poetry WLU and The Steel Chisel. His first chapbook, Chicken Scratch, was recently published by Puddles of Sky Press.