He was here this weekend, glad handing and strutting about the place like he’d already won.  Obama that is, not the other guy.  We had months of drivel about whether middle America (some faceless horde of church going borderline sexist racist men who tell their wife’s how to vote – you know in the booth with them or something, or maybe y’all vote online), will better stomach a women than some black guy from the upper PJ’s.  Well it seems that Jesse Jackson is forgotten and that girl who blew Clinton not.  Or maybe clean-cut family guy Will Smith is more popular with the masses than stick-girl pop.  Anyway youth won over beauty or whatever and he is the man for the sudo-lefties and therefore president in all but, well the votes.

Maybe after Bush’s brother had to deport all those Chads that were living in Florida, voting was seen as too much trouble.  The guy with the most money always wins right?  So why bother hassling the people to actually go outside (in case they fill up their tanks on the way).  Or maybe there is some rule about having to swap sides once a guy gets two terms in a row, you know, like in baseball, Only duller.

So here, in the rest of the world, outside of America, where 24 in every 25 people live, we only know about Obama.  Pragmatist, fresh faced, happy talking in full sentences and words we all know with pre-slaked lips.  The sort of public facing nice guy shit we all get before the election.  So maybe it’s better if you don’t vote.  Maybe that way he won’t burn villages in the home counties and send helicopters and marines to “re-appropriate” aunt Maybel’s coal from the shed at the bottom of her garden.   She does worry so.

What we don’t know is much about the other guy.  That he is old, white, male and goes to church every Sunday is a given.  Also it’s likely that he’s keen on making the world “more like home” (his home where foriegners can’t vote and clean his house / car/ boats/ nob for minimum wage or go to jail).  I also expect that his white bible has a copy of GQ inside, just to remind him of what God doesn’t like other people to do.  We don’t know what he looks like or what his name is.  Kelly maybe, like that Osboure girl.  Bah it doesn’t matter.  He’s obviously too poor to win.

My older brother Davinda
owns a shiny laundromat
in a city so big it’s
a land of it’s own.
I go visit him every
few years to help out
during his busy period.

His place looks real nice
from the outside.  It’s
all glass with a light
copper graduated tint
that slowly fades from
dark at the floor to
clear under the sign.

This Texan from the
Mexican crematorium
next door hooked him
up with free hot air
and this glass.  All Davinda
had to do was shave and
wash little-league shirts
at least twice a week.

Looking out is like that
Rihanna video where you
can’t tell colours right
without looking at the
haircut.  Davina says
people won’t look you
in the eye and anyway
the tint makes the
sidewalk look clean.

The hot air has
overheated most of
the driers so there’s
only one working for
the four washers.  An
old lady is drying her
horse hair blankets and
smiling at the queue.

There a young black guy
from the upper PJ’s
washing his dads suit
next to a tight lipped blond
checking her husbands shorts
for lingering stains.
They don’t notice
each others handshakes.

An army man is removing
dry cleaners wrap from his
uniform and washing it again
because his tattoo has run
into the sleeve.  Another guy
threw in a dead duck and
stood guard as the first read
GQ inside his white bible.

I told Davinda about the
duck but he said that he
never goes out front and
anyway a Jewish guy
washed one a while back
in a cold wash with super
spin and it didn’t stick.
So it’s better to sit still.

The dryer has stopped
but the blanket isn’t dry.
The old lady doesn’t have
any more quarters and
everyone is very sorry
about their shoes.  I go
out and give her a couple,
but she isn’t grateful.

I ask Davinda why he stays.
He says that uncle Ravi
(on his second wife’s side)
incorporated him in
Delaware where they
take anyone’s quarters
for just a nickel each. This
happiness makes him thin,
and me homesick.