The Rubric Cannot Account for Love

Consider the sacrifices made
for a coherent paragraph
or the windows of a building

constructed in silence
The design of an elementary school
is not a summary of intentions

but will lose certainty
if too cold or too warm
So we stitch the edges

hem and haw the trim
Outside those windows
we may spin our straw men

into gold guessing
as we round the boundary
more than one ultimate good

although we imagine
the world streamlined never
entering the same stream twice

At the top of their game
on the tip of a hill
Mary and Elizabeth embrace

then part, one heads north
the other south
different drummers to airy thinness beat

each smiles in her decline
granting the other
an A for effort