Misdemeanors
By John F. Buckley


Petty criminality nips at our heels like Chihuahua pups,
seizing Achilles’ tendons for the purest of reasons.
We copy gate keys that read “DO NOT DUPLICATE,”
passing them out to our friends on bongwatery couches.

We leave the toothpaste cap off at the bus station, ticket
in hand, the tube crying her guts onto the bathroom counter.
Remembering the pressures of middle-school, we buy
cigarettes for minors perched out back by the dumpster.

We break the laws of nature, just the minor meaner ones,
the banning of altruism by spring lambs toward fallen lions
and prohibiting blitheness in stray hours on work days,
the codes enshrining the plucking of yardweeds and

stressing the incessancy of militantly rotating one’s tires,
the ordinance of Hummer envy and diligent climbing uphill.
We strive and we snivel, we bearers of culture, biology,
earwax, and sin, we dig in to find meanings and loopholes,

scraping fenders and icing off cakes without leaving notes,
plopping down to find tacks in our own gray swivel chairs.
We forge chains of behavior and spankings and spite toward
the rote recitation of nursery rhymes, slacking and striking

and changing the lyrics so poor Jack and Jill now tumble
through piles of dog-doo and now we lay us down to sleep
with wicked comments about sheep. Something behind our
eyes bulges, something pink, and our mischief surmounts.

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