...Between a Thong and a Hard Place...

Now before things go and get violent, 

all I am saying is that this girl 

   had a nice figure. 

A simple observation. 

Yet what here exists in your eye 

if not a certain maniacal glare? 

There with upturned lip you snarl, 

“And just why did you have to say that?”

So sure, I take your righteous point, 

yet just as curtly dismiss it. 

Well… other than the fact 

your vocal retort has managed to 

transcribe as ink upon tattered paper. 

Your presence as cursive nib livid. 

Your scrawl a frenzied flourish of rage

that rips the script ever so. 

Duly noted.   Unduly dismissed. 

So okay. 

Just how does a woman 

come to equate unto this 

total visual summation of, 

quote,      “nice figure”? 

Well, I did not say 

that this was all she was, 

rather that that this was all 

   I knew her as.

Could have been more. 

Could have been less. 

Location. Location. Location. 

As in the abutment of 

buttressed brick to brick, 

you need to have known 

how the mortar was laid  

to get the full    appreciation. 

Here, let me imbue the construe 

via some further clarification. 

She was at the swimming pool. 

Elucidation. 

She was at some swimming pool 

in the midst of the arid desolation. 

Illumination. 

She was at some swimming pool 

in the middle of the Saudi Arabian desert.

Exclamation. 

Oh yea, and she 

was wearing a thong. 

Gluteus Maximus 

bifurcation recreation elation. 

For you see, she was 

the only woman present 

there upon this particularly 

remote military site. 

She currently surrounded by 

a good fifty plus soldiers 

suffering from enforced celibacy 

of four or more months absent 

anything acutely aquatic erotic. 

She… 

She who when packing her bags 

for this specific tour of duty said, 

“Burka? Um… no. … 

Bikini? Yes, but…   Butt. 

What about my thong?” 

Body built bodacious. 

Vulva valvular voluptuous. 

She knew the nude she was doin’, 

and just whose mind she was screwin’. 

She at a swimming pool of which 

not one single individual was 

in anyway actually swimming. 

Yes, and there mid Saudi Arabia… 

There beside this one remote 

pool o’ turgid torpedoes gone 

unseen submarine obscene, 

every testicular eyeball 

is cloaked behind dark sunglass. 

Oh, and every cloaked eyeball 

knows where every other 

eyeball is sly-eye balling. 

Oh, and over on the corner of the pool 

were “the thong” currently resides, 

there is this water cooler. 

I would like to point out 

that the Saudi Desert is 

a truly parched environment. 

So much so that the 

Saudi National in charge of the pool 

was forever checking to 

assure the cooler’s water 

was constantly topped off. 

Ask yourself this: 

Should the wearing of a thong 

be punishable by death? 

Here in Handmaid Trump America, 

we’ve yet to muster the required votes, 

but Saudi Arabia in the mid 1990s? 

During this time in the 

country’s capital of Riyadh, 

they had the regular police and then 

those which they called the ‘Mutawa’. 

The Mutawa were in charge 

of religious observance and 

enforced public morality. 

What can or cannot 

a poet place on a page? 

What can or cannot 

a poet state from a stage?

What say thee o’ Mutawa mindset?

Oh, and here a Handmaid anecdote: 

Five US Marines had 

decided to see the sites in Riyadh. 

Yes, and one of the five Marines 

   was a woman. 

This one woman and her 

four male companions 

had been briefed to in no way 

   create “an incident”. 

That if this female Marine was 

to encounter a Mutawa, 

she was to in all ways remain 

   subservient. 

To say nothing. 

To do     nothing. 

But sure enough, 

they did encounter a Mutawa. 

And he seeing a woman 

without her requisite headscarf 

took grave and mortal offense. 

He in front of a large Saudi crowd 

knew that he as their 

representative of Sharia Law 

must absolutely make an example of 

this disrespectful heathen woman, 

and he begins to berate her. 

Castigate her.

All whilst the other four Marines 

   simply step aside. 

For you see, they have their orders. 

The Mutawa carry a short ceremonial stick: 

a cane, a cudgel, a crop. 

A symbol of their self-ordained authority. 

And when a crowd comes to form, 

this particular Mutawa begins to 

prod the female in the chest 

and back her across the square. 

As she continues her 

slow-motion back-pedal, 

the other four Marines 

remain concerned but there act aloof. 

They know what she’s been told. 

They know the quality of her restraint. 

Certainly the significance of 

   any act of retaliation. 

Presently her back 

comes up against a rigid wall, 

and for her, there’s no further retreat. 

And yet the Mutawa’s pontifical prick  

continues to jab at her chest. 

This is a woman.

This is an American woman. 

No, rather, this is an American woman 

of such an empowered mindset 

that she knew she wanted to join 

the United States Marine Corps. 

And here that inviolate space 

between her patriotic breasts 

is being raped by some 

religious fuck’s faith-filled phallus. 

And she snaps.

Her fist rips from her hip 

and abruptly slams into 

the Mutawa’s aghast face. 

This an act of which, 

to his consecrated mind, 

remains totally inconceivable. 

And he drops. 

Falls back into the street, to 

collapse fully unconscious. 

His precious baton

here now sent a clatter

across resounding asphalt. 

The other four Marines 

instantly grab the fifth and 

dash down the street 

to a waiting truck;

from there onward to an aircraft 

which abruptly flies her up and away, 

out of the medieval Kingdom 

of a so chancred Saudi Arabia. 

Oh, and I’m sure 

she was reprimanded; 

admonished and rebuked. 

And yet… 

And yet I can only imagine… 

Indeed can only hope, 

that from the moment 

her fist returned to her side, 

‘til that moment her wheels 

touched down back in America, 

she had upon her face 

the faintest hint of a 

radiant smile.

Ó2019 Jack David Hubbell