Tag: impolite

The man who just sat down,
You smiled at him.

He did not smile back.
He’s a large man.

You might have been offended
By his lack of courtesy,
But you’re wiser now.
You’ve received the grace of pain.

And so instead of taking offense,
You wonder if his age and size
Have amounted to a painful walk
That felt, to him, like a marathon.

And then you see his knee,
The scar down the middle,
The oceanic swelling.

It wasn’t that he didn’t smile,
This man who just sat down.
It was that he couldn’t smile.