Temperance

I want to see you

As you are,

When you are not

Careful

When you are not

Wearing your best wool coat over leather shoes

When the day has been awful and the night is bitterly windy 

When the car wouldn’t start and your companion is fretful

And the pocket change was not in the pocket

Or the lunch was not available 

Or the plans took a sudden stinking turn against your best attempts

When the corner isn’t square and the blade isn’t sharp 

I was raised on such situations, served up more frequently than ice cream

On such a day I want to observe

Character like a litmus test

Will you?

Strike me with your arm

Or your venomous words?

Or will you treat me as a comrade in arms against the test? 

Will you?

Spew shame and blame into the dark

Or angrily curse a silent deity who dealt a rotten card? 

Will you

Manage? Or rampage?

I have a need to see

Temperance