Less confrontational than you’d expect,
considering her New York origin,
trained early with impatience to reject
the banal and the bland, and play to win,
she moves and speaks so fast you’ll think her tough,
but she will pull her punches every time.
She tried defiance young, more than enough,
and learned to cast aspersions into rhyme.

Pay no attention to her visage now.
Those brows and lips don’t mean to signal crit-
icism; she can’t mask her face, and walk.
Her judgment is acute – she reckons how,
but opts for subtle and appropriate;
she places slaps in lines of metered talk.