Morning crankiness should not be excused
by weather or lack of caffeination.
The extravagances of fashion among teens
and the elderly should be above criticism.
Small gestures, replacing paper towels, or listening
without complaint or interruption
to a colleague’s long vacation narrative,
are essential, and telling. A camera in your hand
does not confer automatic permission
to block someone else’s vista.
Fluctuations in the price of gas
have depressed us all. Respect subcultures:
never make indiscriminate fun of Irish fiddle music
or Bikram yoga in promiscuous crowds.
Don’t “overdraw the badger” when you “pay your actual.”
Despite mass communication,
regionalisms persist. Overhangs are also eaves
and the locals call summer flounder flukes.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 14, Issue 2.
Kim Roberts is the author of five books, most recently Animal Magnetism, winner of the Pearl Poetry Prize (Pearl Editions, 2011), and the anthology Full Moon on K Street: Poems About Washington, DC (Plan B Press, 2010). She edits the journal Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and co-edits the web exhibit DC Writers’ Homes.
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