Often, when I exchange one place for another, I long to stay where I arrive, indefinitely.
When I was young, I spent summers embraced by the warm love of kinfolk.

Basking in love like a cat in the sun. No arguments over schoolwork, chores.
But could that survive residency? After awhile, we judge even those we best love.

Perhaps especially those we best love. We know them so well.
Their faults are always before us. Like our own, only different.

The fault before me of another is that because he’s often late, we’re often late.
I sit outside – watching, like a spectator at a trial. Judging. 

I sit outside the spectacle of my own faults, too. Judging. Odd – how much exculpatory evidence there is. 
What a soft heart I have! Swayed by such facile arguments for doing as I do! 

Could that soft heart enable others to go astray? We might be on time if I nagged more.
But nagging is painful. To me, to him. And as long as he is going to read until the last minute, shouldn’t I?

Even self-scolding hurts. If you can push yourself to nag, you can push yourself to adjust to where you are.
Often, when I exchange one place for another, I long to stay where I arrive, indefinitely.

For April 27, write a duplex poem. Like a typical sonnet, a duplex has fourteen lines. It’s organized into seven, two-line stanzas. The second line of the first stanza is echoed by (but not identical to) the first line of the second stanza, the second line of the second stanza is echoed by (but not identical to) the first line of the third stanza, and so on. The last line of the poem is the same as the first.