Honor Among Sleeves

All these sleeves are overwhelming. How can
a person choose the less bad hole to dig,
the word that won’t offend if unspoken,
which nostril vents less carbon, the too big
or too small gesture of disagreement,
which eyebrow to raise, or whether to let
fall the other shoe, whether to lament
or to rejoice, to forgive or forget?
I watched an hourglass for clues of how
to discern which grain of sand best merits
a moment’s shove from above to below,
but the judgment passed without a care, its
ruling like the wind I listened to for
days, trying to infer how it decides
which way to blow, while I just pray in four
directions, hold my bated breath inside.
I have learned not to open a carton
of eggs; it is impossible to choose
which hens’ efforts should be granted pardon
while others win cracking – or did they lose?
Such presumptuous advice men dispense,
to “put my best foot forward,” as if rank-
ing toes and insteps is just common sense,
and calling one foot “worst” is merely frank.
So I’m stuck with my feet in the quicksand
of this immobilizing awareness,
this hard fact: the journey of a thousand
miles begins with a single unfairness.
And now it is unbearable to look
you in the eye, to choose which window to
surveil, and wonder whether I mistook
which camera was taking the photo,
and if I close my eyes, imagining
to kiss you in the dark, I agonize
wanting all of you at once: beginning
anywhere is such injustice, a lie.

Blue Unicorn , Fall 2025 (posted pre-publication with permission)

Notes: Even the smallest decision is fraught with moral weight. To choose one as better is to judge the other as worse, even if no such demerit is intended. Meritocracy feels arbitrary and mendacious. Can a person remain honorable even choosing which sleeve to put on first? By the way, notice every line is decasyllabic, and every four lines follow an ABAB rhyme scheme.

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