Foibles

Perhaps my biggest foible

is to try to hide my foibles:

If I succeed

I have no safety net,

no understanding hands of friends

who have learned how to catch me

when I fall

And when I fail

(at least, at times, it’s been like this)

I am the last to know,

the last to see, with grateful eyes,

those steadfast and ironic hands

of friends who know this foible

and don’t tell me,

kindly shielding me

from the imagined fall

of seeing I’m not perfect after all.

©Wendy Mulhern

July 27, 2014