Reaching with eyes, they covered her as a girl,
leaving a grain of gaze, that irritant stare
women must cover everywhere, like pearl.

Even alone in her own room, she curled
back from the windows gleaming with their glare.
Reaching with eyes, they covered her, as a girl,

and stopped her eyes as their long look unfurled,
taking her in as if she belonged there,
a woman, covered everywhere, with pearls

draping her throat. And then she learned to whirl
before the mirror, pierce her ears, and twine her hair.
Reaching with eyes, they covered her, as a girl

covers herself and hunches to a coil
spiraling from the voyeur. But beware:
women cover everything, like pearls

orbed into life. A living ocean swirls;
we reach through it to spiral everywhere.
Reaching with eyes, they covered, in the girl,
what the woman covers: everything, like pearl.