Into the big gym
(“Thanks for votin’!”)
with the sightless eyes
looking down in rows;
with the name of a Korean
auto-parts company on the walls;
with the busy inspector
and the taped-up signs,
and the folksy poll workers—
often improperly masked
(“Ballot goes in any way but sideways.”);
with the optical scanners,
and the long, looped line—
they come in their thousands.
(“Thanks for votin’!”
“Thank you for your service.”)
Red, White . . .
Even the whites come in masks,
perhaps thinking it’s required,
perhaps in an unacknowledged
bow to science.
The working men, muscular and tattooed,
wear neck gaiters, which,
besides sounding like a beloved Southern animal,
lend a paramilitary air.
(“Thanks for votin’!”)
Outside, a man tears off his mask.
“Free at last!”
The more gleeful younger
and stiff-necked older men
sport Trump-Pence tees
and Trump hats,
as, often, do their wives in tow.
(“Thank you, sir.)
And everywhere is red, white, and blue.
On Trumpence hats,
on checked shirts and masks,
and, above all, on The Flag.
The Flag (with the red-white part
naturally bigger) stretches
over ample thighs and buttocks,
cascades on ties falling over the office guts
of white-collar men
(outnumbered and self-conscious in their respectability),
and flows over the large calf muscles
of a man in nylon knee socks.
Once I even see it flashing
in rainbow colors against a black mask.
(“They stick you with this again, Darrell?”
“Oh, I like it. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.
Thanks for votin’.”)
Women come with families
or from their jobs—
nurses in scrubs,
servers in name tags
and the uniforms of cheap restaurants,
teachers cozy in warm knits.
(“Thanks for votin’!”),
Poorer women come in sloppy clothes
and bad dye jobs
and defiant pride.
Wealthier women come,
in styled, carefully colored hair,
expensive earrings,
and clacky heels—
their armor proclaiming
varnished insulation.
(“And thank you, Darrell.
Nice to see you here.”
“Oh, I’m here every time.
Thank you for votin’.”)
They come, the red-whites,
with children to vote for guns and against education,
with vaginas to renew their altar-vows of submission,
with gray hair to vote against Medicare and Social Security,
with canes or in wheelchairs to vote against healthcare,
with aching muscles to vote against unions and higher wages,
with outstanding warrants to vote for stronger police.
(“Thanks for votin’!”
“Yes sir.”)
And Black and Blue
We fought for freedom—they said it was our time.
Yeah, we won the vote—they’re sayin’ now’s our time.
But if Black lives matter, how come we’re always waitin’ in a line?
(“Thanks for votin’!”)
There is no Biden gear.
They come, in their hundreds,
in sober blue, except for the occasional
irrepressible Crimson Tide fan.
Towards evening,
I see a single set
of Kamala pearls.
I got the registration blues.
I got the secretary-of-state registration blues.
Cleared up all that paperwork—then they give me the bad news.
(“Ballot goes in any way but sideways.”)
Not too many, but one’s too many.
Chatty poll worker at the end of the day:
“I tell ’em, over and over again:
‘You got to get your stuff straight.’
But you can tell ’em till you’re blue in the face . . . ”
(shrugs).
The sheriff’s deputy,
consulting with his social media
circle of sheriff’s deputies,
asks the chatty worker to close
at 6:58.
Katie bars the door.
I take out my phone
to file a report.
Open sesame.
Two young Black men come in,
wearing their best sneakers.
(“Thanks for votin’!”
“You’re welcome.”)
About the author: Lorna Wood is a teacher, musician, and writer in Auburn, Alabama. Raised in Oberlin, Ohio, during the 1970s, she began to pursue writing in midlife and naturally gravitated toward activist writing, especially feminism. Her activist works include the following: "Etheree for Heather Heyer," published in Poetry South (Pushcart nominee); anti-totalitarian poems in Coastal Shelf, After the Pause, Unstitched States, and Gnu; an anti-war horror story in 34 Orchard; a post-apocalyptic story in which climate change and the wealth gap are featured in Coffin Bell; two gender-reversed homages to Raymond Chandler, in Mysterical-E and on the Litro (USA) Lab podcast; and a novel, The Jesus Wars, that weaves coming-out and staying-in stories into a satire on Christian nationalism. The Jesus Wars is now available on Kindle and KDP.com.
See more of Lorna’s work on her blog Word Music and on her Amazon Author Page.