Voting 2018
Standing in line outside a primary school library
waiting for an open booth, cars filling up the small
parking lot. The times blur. The voters in this after-work
line are different generations, their cars are a few years
apart, the desks seen through windows come up a bit
below our knees as surfaces for third graders. When booths
open, they are brief as a cousin’s kiss, each an aluminum
suitcase unfolded on telescoping legs with fold-out sides
just tall enough to prevent your neighbor from yelling out
who you just voted for. The ballot you were issued by the
volunteer who resembles your Aunt Sophie slides neatly
into the plastic voting book whose thick pages align
with ballot spaces as punch-out choices yes no names
you’ve never heard of you can’t take back your punch
recall the Supremes arguing about ‘hanging chads’?
The count is a near future, though distant as determining
power. Outside lumber mills on the coast huge piles of sawdust
thought mere waste now molded into presto-logs sold
packaged at a modest profit. Who knows what might yet
be found useful? Some know a little of the history
that brought us here most do not. Over half of us stay home,
don’t bother. A meaningless hassle. Crooks and liars all of them.
You wait for the time-blur to clear, your aluminum
stylus hovering over the choices, thinking of civil war as
voting’s alternative and of the fools who stayed home.
The Dog Star 
2 Responses to “Voting 2018”
This sums up the situation neatly.
Thanks Swabby!!