Jeffrey H. MacLachlan

You Have No Capitalist Friends

Ekphrastic after a Soviet propaganda poster c. 1931.

You Have No Capitalist Friends by Jeffrey H. MacLachlan

Right Eye

In this eye are capitalists. They parade across your sclera in marble top hats. They loiter with knuckles mining gold in trouser pockets. They swell your eye with forty-eight bulbous stars. You rapidly blink to replicate a film projector to end the image. They employ your senses to let them dally.

Left Eye

In this eye are proletarians. Their hands bustle with hammer and sickle. They view toil through a corrective lens. They whistle for you to scat in rhythm. Work is just. Work is just. Their melodies slow industrial beats.

Mustache

You styled a Van Dyke after testing mescaline. Your manager approved of the Lenin look. The factory roars like a dragon’s orgasm within your temples. Concrete walls flay your chin like a guillotine spraying gas mouton and blades. Your right eye spins so the left labors more.

About the Author

Jeffrey H. MacLachlan has recent work in Landlocked, Swamp Ape Review, and Stonecoast Review, among others. He is a Senior Lecturer of literature at Georgia College & State University.