Watching Barack

watching Barack between
necks, shoulders, on tippy toes, then
sinking into a kind of claustrophobia
looking at chests, down at shoes,
at children sitting at their parents' feet
I stretch up again towards his voice
called Forward again, Forward
not back to the last century where
women walked behind their man,
where the poor sickened and died,
forward towards education and
prosperity for all, an ideal
worth striving for.