Lessons in Leisure

She spit on the floor
demanding a confession,
tossing dead-rose vases
and half-empty liquor bottles

towards my shrinking composure.
A life well lived is a life
worth living I thought to myself
as glass shattered inches

from my head.  Then I imagined
my own past—the girl on the floor
of a friends parent's house,
one in the park after midnight,

and one whom I could never name
at a random University party.
It's the American way: get laid,
get paid.  But this story is off;

she had done no wrong
I had not done myself.
And these days are filled
with old decisions: to honor

thy Mother and Father; do not
cheat, steal, or kill. Rules
passed down through generations
who still stumble upon the lessons.

She was remarkable in her leisure,
holding fast to some Arthurian legend
where the guise of life's macabre
could never exist.