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violet takes the young man's question seriously
she has dyed indigo hair of late
dyed with something called, ludicrously, pizazz
(hair has been pale blonde/white and dark chestnut also)
and dresses however she pleases
often in zen robes because she is a priestess in training
often in jeans and hooded sweatshirt because she is a film reviewer
often skyclad when it's warm in her desert
often in white like did a retiring writer of amherst
often in black silk, like a secretary turned bad
she has begun to wonder
very delicately
does anyone tread these boards
who is over the age of thirty
for she too cannot read the semi-numeric language of those
who have never held fountain pens
who have spent hours, perhaps, with his purple badness
it is, this tongue (she thinks), more byzantine and baroque
than that of her beloved
eighteenth century
might she meet others of her scarab-sapphic-sybilline kin
who might be yet more shy than she
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