The Accent

My friend just back from Iraq
maybe six or seven months
and discharged from the army

was an optometrist at Abu Ghraib,
was back home now
looking for a different kind of job,

a release valve, a working vacation.
Well, one day while working
with a Lebanese guy

who’s been in America for over twenty years,
anyway, my friend gets pissed off
at the Lebanese guy and tells him

to go to hell or wherever it is
that Lebanese guys go
when they are told to do so.

A day later my friend says
“I didn’t know why I went off on him,
it wasn’t until today

that I realized it was the accent!”
Ever since the dawn of time
soldiers bring the war back home

and they have to deal with it
the best way they can.
The accent, the accent, huh? Damn.