by Elizabeth Bodi

It wasn’t gold or even close,
but more an apricot.  No name
because come morning he’ll succumb
to fate, this transitory spoil
of war, water-bound, unaware
his life was meant for trade and pure
commodity.  I thought his eyes,
alive and bulging, tunneled straight
towards the guilty fact that he
was second-rate at best, because
the shiny car with racing stripes
was what I wanted most.  But now,
I’m left with life I never wanted,
a warden for a while, until
the scales no longer shine for light
and I am left, the bearer of
an afterlife.