naked

i’d sit along the swimming pool, dangling my legs, cradling an unlit cigarette between my fingers, watching an old fat Israeli lady swimming slow laps across the length. her skin, over the sun; her body, over the health; she’s smoked her way to a comfortable age where it’s too late to regret and to easy to forget.
i’d wonder if i’d ever be one of these Israeli ladies. i don’t think it was wishful wonder but a passive wonderment that held some meaning for me when i was unsure of it all; still unable to express myself, still as a 7-year-old, as a separate class. and it’s my american breeding that made me so unable or unwilling to strip myself naked before society, or maybe just this society that’s been stripping itself naked since it started. but i’ve never had a need to do so in america, and it’s been hard to begin after 20+ years that way.
we’re born naked and we’re buried naked, but life has been made to be an image building thing where naked is a condition to be feared. its stupid, like playing with an unlit cigarette between my fingers and sitting on the edge of a pool.