Swastika girl.

& I have this friend, you see.
She’s a good friend & an overall fine gal,
makes a good bloody mary,
washes behind her ears,
& never picks her nose in public.

What else could you ask for in a friend,
really?

But there’s this & here’s the thing…
She’s got this tattoo…
& the tattoo goes all the way around her arm
& it’s red and it’s black and it’s white,
& it’s like a Nazi armband.

Complete with Swastika.

Perfectly nice girl,
but I do wonder about her judgment.

I mean, she’s never so much as hinted
that she & I should go
running through town on a Saturday night
& break storefront windows
of Jewish shop owners

or invade Poland.

& maybe she’s into Nazi imagery
the same way the next guy is into Star Wars
or Twilight.

But is it still too soon?

& I mean, even me…
I have this damn John Edwards ’08 tat
to remind me of my own embarrassing past.

But a Swastika?

Let me lay it down –
if it were me?
I’d get the thing retouched
into something less horrific.
Like maybe an image of Kevin Costner
being sodomized by the Bee Gees.

But the tat is there
& from the looks of it
it’s not going anywhere
for as long as she still has the arm.

& I remain her friend
despite my doubts.

But we never talk politics
& I never use her shower
or her oven.

December 21, 2012.