Well you know Ruth – she’s always talking smack
about the folks she calls her closest friends.
The simple truth: she doesn’t have your back;
her judgment knows no limits and extends
from comments criticizing you to me,
to circumstantial judging me aloud.
We can’t accuse of inconsistency
a woman so improving, so endowed.

She’s hypercritical, but is that wrong?
She craves perfection in our treasured souls.
If she were slower, with a voice less strong,
we’d mind her carping less, her glowing coals
not painful like the audible assault
from Ruth’s asides to each, of other’s fault.