13,412. AT THE ENCLAVE

AT THE ENCLAVE

'Turn please the corner swiftly.'

The man spoke oddly, and his

stance was no better : loose

clothing, and some sort of an

unconnected joist to his florid

stance. It made me uncomfortable.

-

And then I found others much

like him; gathered around a table,

with pale lighting from overhead.

The walls were light green, the

sort of green I hadn't seen since

'Kojak' aired a lousy police 

station weekly, in 1975.

-

Odd placement, these thoughts.

They were poring over district maps

and claiming here to be adjudicators

of voting fraud. Reviewing records.

Checking signatures. Inspecting 

small checked boxes. 'Please turn

that corner swiftly too,' I wanted

to say. Nothing seemed right.

-

Certain fires in the belly never die.

These people, I realized, were set

for a sort of paper-combat I thought

had long ago disappeared. 'Hell-bent

for leather,' as it once went.

-

I wondered. We can make toothpaste

and we can package cookies, by the

hundreds of thousands, by machine.

Yet we cannot  -  without obfuscation  -

conduct here a settled election of the

sort without disclaimers and without

the foul maiden of fraud? Turn please

this corner swiftly.