...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
