cooling winds bring a
portent of papers and
bluelined copybooks,
red pencil at the
ready, she hesitates
over his sentences,
diagramming his declarations
until the whole is
broken down into many
parts, each word a pearl
of great price strung
together by semicolons
of gold, commas clarifying
meaning, his intent true
for all time, the starkness
of clouds pressed against blue sky
