Poetry Gong - Poem 27

Miss Manners Cannot Think of a More Succinct Definition of a Lady Than “Someone Who Wants To Punch Another Person in the Nose, But Doesn’t,” or: Taking Your Clothes Off While Hanging Laundry Will Not Get You Invited to the Neighborhood Party - A Found Poem From Miss Manners' Guide to Rearing Perfect Children


Consider instead, the likely results
of your acting like a lady.
You see her in the neighborhood
you give her a friendly wave.
See how easy it is.
You have made her feel terrible
and remorseful—and all by behaving
like a perfect lady.

Now Miss Manners asks you
to listen to a small lecture on the rights
and obligations of friendship.
Even the closest of married couples
have social engagements
in which they see people separately—
one cannot always have the same guest list,
and your friend cannot be expected
to hire another house
to spare your feelings. A lady finds
as she sails through life,
that she can spare herself
a great deal of anguish by not taking
notice of unpleasant occurrences
that were not
intended for her notice.

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I know it's a terribly long title. I kind of like it.