She said I like your coat and I said no this coat is trash,
She said it looks great, I said it’s from a clearance dash,
She said the color is so good, I said the cut is wrong,
And we both held our positions for a beat too long.
This is how it works sometimes in the compliment exchange—
The receipt of a kind observation in the normal range
Requires a defense of why it does not fully apply,
A modesty performance where you partially deny.
The flip side is the person who receives the compliment whole,
Who says yes, I know, with an unironic soul,
Which is technically correct and probably healthier to do
But reads as slightly too much confidence breaking through.
There is a narrow corridor of compliment reception skill:
Humble enough to register, assured enough to fill
The moment with a gracious and a simple thanks returned,
A social performance that apparently must be carefully learned.
I have been working on receiving them without an argument,
Without immediately locating the counter-evident,
Just: thanks, I appreciate it, moving on with standard pace,
A revolutionary act of taking them at face.
The hardest ones are the specific, which hit below the guard,
The observation about something that you have worked at hard,
When someone names the thing you do with actual precision,
The throat does something complicated with the decision.