Abstention

The sticker on her lapel was a bright, plastic red.

I looked at my shoes and I stayed in my bed.

I was afraid of the questions they'd ask,

like a face that forgot to put on its mask.

In the gutter outside, by the grocery store,

a sample ballot lay flat on the floor.

The 'X' was a smudge of a purple-black dye,

bleeding out in the rain like a tired old eye.