this is a longish and thickish poem... but i love it. and so i put it here to share it with you....

Forgiveness
Steven Philip Gehrke

At lunch, your friend tells you he's having trouble with his lover, and
you say, "I'm sorry," which doesn't seem to help much, because he's
really swimming in it now, so drenched with tears you half expect
the waiter to stop by and sponge him off. So you swipe a few napkins
from their little tin house, lean across the table, and say, "I'm really
really sorry," like you're asking for his forgiveness. Which, after all,
maybe you are, because the scroll of your own sins, when it comes
to love, could stretch from here to the parking lot and back, and part
of you wants to unroll it right now and start listing them off, the way
they do at hangings. But seeing your friend wrecked like this makes
the other part of you feel lousy and really wish for his forgiveness, or
if not his, then the waiter's. At this point, anyone's would do. Because
that's the way the world should work, you think: we should forgive
each other all the time, handshakes cut loose in favor of gestures of
forgiveness, a palm placed upon the forehead of everyone you meet,
their palm on your forehead, leaning there against each other, a few
small words of absolution, little Post-it notes — Don't be so hard on
yourself — stuck to your computer at work, even just a quick sign of
the cross from your boss on his way to a coffee break, so that you can
forgive him when he comes back, for surely he'll have sinned in those
few minutes, and so will you, on of those small malices: slamming
your desk drawer because the work never stops, a curse just beneath
your breat, the misdemeanors we all commit, because eventually
even the good must sin, if for no other reason than to experience the
joy forgiveness brings. And why not give that joy to each other all the
time? Though maybe we already do this, because what else would you
call, except gestures of forgiveness, a hand extending toward a mislaid
hair, the man nodding your through the tollbooth when you forget
your change? Or something subtler than that: the quick glance in the
hallway that says, "Here we both are, and that's OK," with the two minds
processing and judging, judging and releasing, both knowing so much
about the shortcomings of the other, yet arranging an oblivious face,
like the waiter who ignores the napkins, crumpled with tears, your
friend has left piled on his plate.