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thin, dark and lithe
the naked beauty
was only interrupted
by the trace of hair
on her upper lip
and she said,
in Serbia,
the flag is
red white and blue
but everything
after that isn't
even close to
being the same
and I can tell you
right now in
Pristina, families
are sitting in front
of their houses
watching the world
while here, families
are inside their
houses watching
the world and
I suddenly thought
about my nakedness
and I quickly became
ashamed and aware of
my red and hypertense
face and my white
pale flesh flashing
in the mirror so imperfect
and so very loose,
outshining
the light of my pale
blue eyes.
he told me about it
while under
the hood
of his car, how
he and his wife
became swingers
after the kids flew
away and he had
the pictures in
his phone to prove it
and to me a stranger
he showed me
pictures from
some ranch, pictures
full of the
middle-aged flesh
of his wife and
others and all I
was trying to
do was sell
him an alternator
and all that flesh
made me think
of so much
desperation, of
so much
scratching and
clawing and I
thought about
my life and
my writing,
how and why
I write and the
answer was
in that phone,
I am trying to
life my life
to the fullest,
trying to
leave my
mark,
something
more permanent
than a
thumbprint
in the sand.
and here I am
moved to tears
as I watch a
young German
boy play checkers
through a barbed
and electric
fence with
a Jewish boy
who is thin
and dirty and
just this close
to dying and
I have to wonder
what my Jewish
friends think
when they
see a holocaust movie,
do they indeed
take it personally
or
how would I feel
if there was a film
or a campaign made
where some authority rounded
up all the white suburban
men who barely believed
in any god at all, white
men put in camps where
they would be tortured
and terrorized and maybe
butchered and burned
like pigs in a slaughterhouse
and no
I wouldn’t take it personally.
I would probably
figure that at least
a few of us
had it coming.
David LaBounty lives in suburban Detroit. His recent work has appeared in Pank, Night Train, and other journals. His third novel, Affluenza, a story about debt, consumerism, pyromania, vanity and pornography told through the financial and moral rise and fall of an insurance executive who lives beyond his means, will be out within the year.
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