One must require from each one the duty
      which each one can perform.

      —  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

So prim it curdles the milk
in my tea. Too rich for my blood,
too thick for the fine china
I want to shatter.

But worst of all
is its singular lack
of chutzpah, that it shirks
collective courage,
chooses the easiest chore

–the laundry for example–
I mean, really, a one-person job.

Together in Old English is
samode aetgedere
or all together together,
so nice they’d say it twice,
test balloon, litmus test.
The Anglo Saxons knew one
was a sole survivor, the wanderer
without kin left to claim.

But isn’t bravery best served
like wonder at dusk,
like a killer sunset on a platter,
courage charcuterie,
and shouldn’t it be a goddamn party?
I’d go to that party with you, any party,
hip to hungry hip on a summer night,
the opposite of one must is touch,
the opposite of one should,
a kiss under a hot pink sky.