Too Casual

[I believe I'll share this with the Monday Poetry Train Revisited. You should check them out.]


Too Casual

She said we were too casual, we Americans,
nearly always in jeans and t-shirts.
Her closet was full of silky saris
and soft salwar kameez, the cotton printed
with delightful patterns.
She stood graceful and polished
against our denim.

We were freshly-minted college students, bright
and confident that only an introduction
was needed to turn a stranger into a friend.
She said we were too forward, leaping
to given-name familiarity at the first meeting,
yet she was a friend by then, herself,
or she wouldn't have told us.

I looked at us through her eyes and saw
she was right. We were casual and forward.
We were racing toward degrees or away
from our pasts, testing the outlines of adulthood
as we tried the patience of our parents.

She was right. And yet, I was delighted
to be surrounded by intelligent women,
most of whom were also too casual,
too forward, and just an introduction away
from being my friends.