Voters on Election Day

let's trade places you and I
and see what it like from the other side
would I want you as much if you were me
and if I were you would I yearn to be free

would you tread time like water waiting for me
would I rush through my day so your words I could see
would I check my phone the way that you do
to see if a text or an email came through

and would you sit at a screen and search for the words
that scatter like seeds left out for the birds
and try to pick out the ones that are real
the ones when combined that show how I feel

and would you start over and over again
giving thanks for a keyboard instead of a pen
thinking how trees must be glad that I write on a screen
and not on scrap paper tossed out by the ream

at the end of the day when we came face to face
would I be just like you with your poise and your grace
and would you be sat there trying for cool
while feeling inside like a kid still in school

I'm assuming of course that were different inside
yet both going about working out how to hide
the truth of the feelings we're longing to share
the breadth and the depth of just how much we care

so if we traded places and I became you
could I do the things that I ask you to do
and if you became me could you easily wait
or would you, like me, be afraid of "too late"

A Thomas Hawkins, "trading places"