Today's poem is by Al Maginnes

Polite Society
       

A banged knuckle, a line of blood
weeps the back of his hand
as he stifles the first word
that rises. The summers of
cotillion lessons and manners camp
choke that curse like a collar
buttoned too tight. He sets aside
the socket wrench, washes his wound
clean, recalls tearing his pants
before recital and how artfully
a teacher mended the damage.
The teacher is gone into
the past tense, when children were
all good and didn't slouch
or mutter or yell impolite words,
a world orchestrated by manners.
Across the motor bay, a crash of steel
and someone yells, "Mother..."
before stopping short, another
invective pinched silent by
the talons of old manners,
the ones learned too early
to ever be forgotten.

Tweet
Copyright © 2024 Al Maginnes All rights reserved
from Twelve Mile Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission