So how did YOU vote?
 


Gripping his daughter’s fragile hand,
and mangling the worms of her fingers
fiercely into his own, he spat the words
out into the humiliated air between us.
 
‘Because I need to know,’ he said.
‘It’s important.’ All the other parents –
mostly mothers – were marshalling their
creatively-fed boys and girls back
 
home from school to peel campaign stickers
from their windows and wheelie bins,
weigh up the final reckoning of promises
and lies. I looked first into her puzzled eyes,
 
then his, the furious milk of his eye-whites
coming to the boil before simmering
into his turnip skin, and abandoned all
those careful words I’d been preparing
 
in anticipation of this very question.
‘The same way I always do,’ I said.
‘With a tiny little kiss,’ before turning
and ushering myself furtively away.

Robert Ford

If you have any thoughts on this poem, Robert Ford would be pleased to hear them.