Silence

when I get so sick of my brothers' and their friends' frequent long extended drinking marathons at our space-challenged apartment, I wish I could just lash out at them with this poem--

Silence

by Marianne Moore

My father used to say,
"Superior people never make long visits,
have to be shown Longfellow's grave
or the glass flowers at Harvard.
Self-reliant like the cat -
that takes its prey to privacy,
the mouse's limp tail hanging like a shoelace from its mouth-
they sometimes enjoy solitude,
and can be robbed of speech
by speech which has delighted them.
The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence;
not in silence, but restraint."
Nor was he insincere in saying, "Make my house your inn."
Inns are not residences.

--and pull a dramatic exit before they can say a thing.

:D