Thomas Fink & Maya D. Mason
YOU’RE MORALLY INFERIOR IF
you clomp audibly
on wood floors, you
wear down heels
within four months,
you lust after ordinary
delicacies, a single
window “graces”
your dwelling,
you fail to shower
thoroughly before kissing,
you exceed the one-
pet rule,
you grew large
breasts during early
puberty (or as a middle-
aged male),
you keep
fingernails long—
rendering hands useless,
you shave your head and
don’t have cancer,
you include tax
while calculating tip,
you don’t offer to shovel
your host’s snowy driveway,
you do nothing about
your weak chin,
you woke up today
after I did,
you wear summertime
pants that accent
egregious girth,
your parents bolloxed
your childhood dental
care, you’re 33
and can’t drive,
your cooking commits
olfactory offense,
you know not
who
your parents are, you
buy two of the same
necklace, you’re too
sentimental to kill
a mere mouse.
You reuse
plastic silverware.
You don’t anticipate
my tacit needs.
Maya D. Mason
Thomas Fink, Professor of English at CUNY-LaGuardia, is the author of 9 books of poetry, most recently Selected Poems & Poetic Series (Marsh Hawk P, 2016), 2 books of criticism, and 3 edited anthologies. His paintings hang in various collections.
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YOU’RE MORALLY INFERIOR IF
you clomp audibly
on wood floors, you
wear down heels
within four months,
you lust after ordinary
delicacies, a single
window “graces”
your dwelling,
you fail to shower
thoroughly before kissing,
you exceed the one-
pet rule,
you grew large
breasts during early
puberty (or as a middle-
aged male),
you keep
fingernails long—
rendering hands useless,
you shave your head and
don’t have cancer,
you include tax
while calculating tip,
you don’t offer to shovel
your host’s snowy driveway,
you do nothing about
your weak chin,
you woke up today
after I did,
you wear summertime
pants that accent
egregious girth,
your parents bolloxed
your childhood dental
care, you’re 33
and can’t drive,
your cooking commits
olfactory offense,
you know not
who
your parents are, you
buy two of the same
necklace, you’re too
sentimental to kill
a mere mouse.
You reuse
plastic silverware.
You don’t anticipate
my tacit needs.
Maya D. Mason
Thomas Fink, Professor of English at CUNY-LaGuardia, is the author of 9 books of poetry, most recently Selected Poems & Poetic Series (Marsh Hawk P, 2016), 2 books of criticism, and 3 edited anthologies. His paintings hang in various collections.