Foreign Affairs
By N. Jed Todd
A dotted line on the back of my neck shows where to cut
The word ‘Infidel’ tattooed midway-- or it’s supposed to be.
In truth, I misspelled it. My Arabic wasn’t what it was supposed to be,
Hadn’t had, then, let’s say, the practice.
‘Infidelity’ is what it really says, or ‘to be without faith’.
But what I’m meant to be without faith in, I guess, isn’t really clear.
We all lost faith in the war long ago,
A sin committed now by habit alone.
Impersonal hotel rooms paid on company accounts,
Tawdry grappling sordid even to the participants.
The only ones really excited anymore are the ones that hate it,
My wife doesn’t ask anymore where I’m even going.
I can’t fight the good fight any longer.
Beard gray, belly soft, eyes squinting not against sun and sand,
But because I’m too stubborn to get bifocals.
Too old, I watch younger men and women make my old mistakes,
Like the ones that once watched me with...
With that creepy damn half-lid smile.
Maybe I can help these kids to better close the blinds,
Keep better track of what the hidden cameras film,
Cover up the mess and red stains about the neckline
So that they don’t get served the same damn papers we got,
Before we’re really ready to end it.
An affair forgiven but not forgotten, it clouds dinner conversation
Darkens dreams of my daughter with dread and death
Afraid of conversations I’ll never really be ready for,
So I stop talking all together.
Oh, I talk to therapists, and she the same,
But we don’t talk to each other of whys and wherefores
And if it was really ever worth it.
We both know there’s no good answer.
At the time it seemed exciting, important,
Romantic even… Not just embarrassing,
Awkward non-sequiturs when I remember where we met,
A topic to avoid at parties.
****
N. Jed Todd is a Texas refugee, TAMSter, retired US Army Psychological Operations Master Sergeant, and a Russian linguist. Also until recently a civil servant, working for the Air Force on tech modernization and information warfare. But since the greatest information weapon is hope, he's turned to poetry and fiction for solace (published in _As You Were_ and in several Middle West poetry collections), and to his family, his daughter Meera and wife Ami.