“Your beauty is answerable for a lot of incoherence, Eve.”
— Henry Williamson

Standing against the wall in the hall
Plastic cup in hand Ms. Too Far
Signaling to me with her radiance

I observe this tight creature
A black hole of puzzling lightness
Straining against the fabric of society
A deep and ardent shape the product
Of an entangled environment
And a clearly medicated world view

Complex and coherent but
With a kink in the wiring
Possessing a certain gift
For spectacular falls and
Finding herself in
Over her head

Once Spica the Virgin she’s
Long lost her ideals and become
A lady of uneasy virtue bent
On dismantling the premises

An Eve in the moonlight
Swinging the lead again
Unbuttoning one button too many
Guarding the unseen parts of
Her human equation and its
Hypothetical conjunction with matter

Well acquainted but remaining distant
With a mood appropriate to the situation
She greets this student who bows
At the classroom of her personality:

Why all this thusness
We are necessary for each other’s humanity so
Why are you making all this pother
Remember to be tolerant of the grown yet growing
We can’t all remain callous tonight
In this hotbed of gaiety
I freely admit my standards have not
Always been the highest
Intolerable intolerable but
What else is there dearie

I was a tiny bit skeptical
No more
I know from past experience
That this is a holy being