Voting-Machine

In 1899, Lenna R. Winslow of Columbus, Ohio, applied for a patent for a “Voting-Machine.” He had created a mechanical system that adjusted the ballot the voter would see based on whether that voter was a man or a woman.  

—David Kindy, Smithsonian.com

 

 

When you enter the booth

through the door marked

 

ladies, listen for the click

and turn—levers and gears

 

designed to conceal.

Don’t trouble yourself,

 

they say, with the say

you aren’t allowed to have,

 

not yet. Where the partial

precedes the whole,

 

how not to feel partially

human, not quite

 

a self? When you enter

the booth, you will hear

 

years—years clicking

away, the grate of metal

 

on metal. The whole

is coming. Listen

 

for the turn.