Vow On

I took a vow of poverty not by design not by choice but with the training wage in youth that paved the way for the minimum wage in my dotage preventing retirement and spurring my credit card company to offer four easy payments with affordable interest for every grocery purchase My neighbour's competitive instinct arrived early in life and introduced him to a vow a vow of celibacy By choice? Perhaps through cultivated elegance I refuse to judge though what might that finger residing in his nose say? Or the tracksuit worn at soirees? Or the salad fork buried deep in the dumpling left at the bottom of the soup bowl? What screams at the family dinner more than the host irate at and about the politics spilling out of mouths as wine flushes in? The toddler about to celebrate a second birthday? The cousin whose devotion to his hometown sports heroes cannot be left unheralded? The nagging aunt who asks Can't you get a real job or at least Be more like your neighbour? It is the silent prayer a summons for the vow of silence