rigid, classic, like parentheses
trapping a flutter of sparrows

mid-theft, chicken coop, after grain.
No match for hers, corseted tight,

white-laced, as she denied my bid
to diagram our pas de deux

across the ballroom floor. A feud,
two stern teachers, each certain —

how to construct the perfect sentence,
our grammar book of would-be love,

unbound, sections lying random
among whirling couples, the chapter

beneath us, ironically, open to rules
on passive voice, page thirty-three.