SKINNY DIPPING*

What if I didn’t try

to be right

or to win?

What if I just

hoped for

a fair hearing

and gave up thinking

you into the role

of Villain or Victim?

What if I set

my story aside

and started instead

with just the facts, ma’am!

so I didn’t kill safety

right from the start?

What if I went so far as to

disagree with myself

and plead to have you  

disprove my point of view also?

What might happen then?

Would you see that

I am not out to nail my

opinions on a medieval cathedral door

or chisel them into a granite tablet

as if they were dictations 
from a burning bush on high?

Maybe we’d be advocates 
instead of adversaries.

And maybe then, one fine day, 
in broad daylight,

we could strip down 
to our skivvies

and go skinny dipping 
in the same swimming hole

where we’d find ourselves 
entirely un-stung and unscathed 

after serpentining our way

down the thistle-fabled path 
of listening.

Inspired by Crucial Conversations,

by Paterson, Grenny, McMillan, Switzer