you can pick your friends

You can pick your friends,
we used to say, and
you can pick your nose,
but you can’t pick your friend’s
nose. We said it often and
understood what it meant:
man lives within constraints,
be they moral or natural;
our little lives were limited
by rules or laws, boundaries
we knew were there and
dared not cross. Nowadays,
my son tells me, you
can pick your friend’s nose,
you just can’t eat the booger.
So there are still constraints,
but things have changed,
and I’d say for the worse.
My father says that in his day
you couldn’t even pick your nose.
For him things have been
changing for quite some time.