Suffrage

Give your name. Prove that you
belong to it. Sign there. Stand here.

Touch the screen to decide who will
spend your money, how much of it

will be spent and on what it will be
spent. There is no option reading

Touch here to decide
those things for yourself.

Touch here if you are sure beyond
your better ideas. Touch here if you

find yourself suddenly not all that
certain. Touch here if you have no

idea why you are touching anywhere.
There is, as you see, no option reading

Touch here to know
how it will all turn out.

back to issue

Steve Brisendine, a recovering journalist who still wrangles words for a living, lives and works in Mission, KS. His most recent books are Salt Holds No Secret But This (2022, Spartan Press) and To Dance with Cassiopeia and Die (2022, Alien Buddha Press), a "collaboration" with his former pen name, Stephen Clay Dearborn. His first collection, The Words We Do Not Have (2021, Spartan Press) has been nominated for the 2021 Thorpe Menn Literary Excellence Award.