She told you, didn’t she?
You saw it in her eyes and the set of her lips.
She had expectations,
and you, generally so sensible to duty,
ignored overt and covert messages,
and carried on blithely
as steam gathered in her head and shot out her ears
in silent reprobation.
Then you shrugged your shoulders, quirked your eyebrows,
and said, “What?” with a tone that flipped all switches of her self-control
and you were astonished at the explosion of emotion
thus released.
She told you. Why weren’t you listening?
Shawn L. Bird 