" Nature Lesson

The dress code says
we must cover ourselves
in
ample pants,
skirts that reach well below
our lascivious knees,
polos buttoned over
the rim of the canyon,
a glimpse of which can send a boy
plunging to such depths
he may never climb back up
to algebra.

We say
that if a hiker strays
off the path, trips, and
winds up crippled,
is it really the canyon's fault? "

― Christine Heppermann , Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty