California, June 7, 2016

I turn off the sound, tired of politicians, their soapy hype, their extracts of fear and desire, bottled to rouse a mass of channeling minds. But I cast my ballot today, coloring a few oblongs with a black marker—one man with a handful of cramped shapes to fill, one vote to tinge a slit. Most of the poll workers were seniors, their gray hair like weary stripes, their starry eyes symbols of the body’s troubled country. After I cast, I drove to the convenience store and overheard the clerk telling a customer about her new teeth. I turned to the talk and saw the latest choppers—candidate-white, slogan-standard, slog-ready. “You can’t brush the roots,” she said with a winning smile.

in a rally of clover
a slung
lottery ticket

Bio: Bill Gottlieb