The Poise of Dawn

The eyes, they say, have it all
Here too, the maxim’s true
But, knowing her
Rather a confining one
To befall

Screaming wanderlust, they grip you
In their icy stare,
In a passionate flare,
But there are jewels
To be found elsewhere

Let the carapace come off
The strong but silent tenacity
And the careful measured verbosity
These she shrugs off, with a dancer’s neck bob
For jiggling feet and unmatched vivacity

Here and there a stolen bellow,
Still there though, the quiet grace,
And oh, what a face!
Careful, you might lose her though
In the realms of a burgeoning bookcase

She looks like herself,
Wearing her strange beauty like war paint
Strong and weak at once
Allowing herself, at least for a little while
To be both

(I’d written this in 2017 as part of three separate poems for three separate friends who I met in grad school (I’m still in touch with all of them). Posting it now because I had never put them up, as well as to keep my yearly quota up. I’m back-dating this even though the commit ID should provide the correct timestamp in gitlog.)