Ways of smiling

Her intrigued assurance

about literature

made the writers’  muse smile

she didn’t like real women

Her teacher at school  became

contemptibly jealous.

She wasn’t caring

so we were told tactlessly

what to read and what to shirk

but she dismayed  us for our

uncertainty;  books  matter;

even  that we  revolved slowly

in some  planetary action

for human salutations

This remade  powerfully—

the way  to live

or to live improperly was

to read   art works with the eye of truth

and they affected me,

and  ironised

other ways of seeing

the ambitions of over-egged theory

and hence our being.

I was educated to love with all my heart