The Ink-Stained Finger

They dip the finger so the count is honest —

one man, one mark, one voice.

It does not wash away by morning.

It rides the hand into the market,

into the church aisle, into the handshake

of a stranger who reads it before he reads you.

Purple like a bruise that means something good,

purple like a promise still deciding

whether to keep itself.

I have seen it fade on some fingers

faster than the promises that stained them.

I have seen others hold the color

like a scar they are proud to carry.