The poem operates as a small interview directed at no one in particular about the Muse’s physical particulars. “Where did that / turn of the ankle / come from?” is the first question, and the phrasing is a small piece of period vocabulary: “turn of the ankle” is the kind of compliment one might find in nineteenth-century novels or mid-century song lyrics, the era’s polite way of admiring a body without listing the body’s parts. The speaker is reaching for the language of a different time, which is part of the poem’s quiet charm. He is praising the Muse in the diction of a man who came up before bodies were named anatomically in love poems.

“Where did that / dimpled chin / on your face / come from?” is the second question, and the dimpled chin is the most idiosyncratic detail in the catalog’s recent poems about the Muse’s appearance. Most poets default to eyes, lips, hair. The dimpled chin is the kind of detail one notices only by looking closely at a specific person rather than at the category of “beautiful woman.” The specificity is the question’s gift. This is not the Muse generalized; this is the Muse who has that particular chin.

“Where did that / shapely derriere / come from?” is the third question and the poem’s only entry into more openly physical territory. The word “derriere” is the diction shift’s smallest stretch — French, dated, polite. The speaker is using the vocabulary that allows the question to be asked without crossing into language that would feel intrusive. The question is not where did her body come from; the questions are where did these specific small features come from, and the smallness is the poem’s discipline.

“You are simply, / beautiful” closes the question sequence with the comma that has appeared elsewhere in the catalog at moments of intensified statement. The comma after “simply” forces the pause that isolates “beautiful” as the answer to all three questions. Where did the ankle, the chin, the derriere come from? They came from her. She is simply beautiful, and the simply is what makes the assessment land. No elaboration is required.

“You are / Lady Blanke” introduces the Muse’s third documented nickname in the catalog, after Lady (from “I Introduce, My Muse”) and Queen Bee (from “A Star,” published the same day as this poem). “Blanke” is new. Whether it is a piece of private vocabulary the speaker uses for her, a reference to a specific occasion, or a playful naming the reader is not expected to decode, the name stands as the catalog’s recurring move: the Muse has multiple names, and the names are tools the speaker uses to approach her from different angles. Lady Blanke is the name appropriate to this particular admiring inventory.

The closing stanza performs the poem’s structural payoff: “As I’m nodding off / I suddenly jump out of bed / to write more beauty.” The catalog’s foundational story is here delivered in three lines. The speaker is falling asleep, the poem arrives unbidden, he gets out of bed to write it down. The act of jumping out of bed is the poem’s only piece of physical motion, and the motion is the poem’s defense against the loss of what would have evaporated if he had stayed asleep. “To write more beauty” treats the writing as additive: the world’s quantity of beauty increases by what he records, which is the catalog’s broader philosophical position translated into the speaker’s nightly habit.

A short admiring poem whose primary accomplishment is the closing stanza about the writer’s habit, with the physical-praise body of the piece functioning as the occasion for that closing. The questions about the ankle, the chin, and the derriere are individually charming but operate in the catalog’s lighter register, and the poem doesn’t reach for the structural or philosophical work the surrounding poems in the recent stretch are doing. After “By Your Heart,” “Luminous / Jeweled Hush,” and “Know,” this piece reads as a lower-stakes side note — appreciative, playful, but not extending the catalog’s argument in a new direction.

The “turn of the ankle” phrasing is the poem’s best diction choice. The phrase carries the period the speaker grew up in, the post-war American vocabulary in which a woman’s ankle was the polite synecdoche for the body. The reader who recognizes the dated quality of the phrase recognizes the speaker’s age and the tradition he is borrowing from. The compliment is delivered in the language that allows it to be delivered without intrusion, which is the poem’s quiet discipline.

The “dimpled chin” specificity is the poem’s quietest accomplishment. Eyes, lips, hair are the default features of generalized love poems. A dimpled chin is the kind of feature one notices in a specific person rather than in the category of beautiful women. The detail signals attention. The speaker is praising the woman he has actually looked at, not a composite. The choice of this particular feature is the poem’s most honest moment.

“You are simply, / beautiful” is the poem’s structural pivot. The comma after “simply” is the catalog’s recurring small device for slowing the rhythm and isolating the word that follows. The technique appeared in the closing of “Christmas Any Day” with “It’s, / personal,” and here it operates similarly: the qualifier is set off so that the closing word receives its full weight. The technique works because the speaker uses it sparingly.

The “Lady Blanke” naming is the poem’s most curious detail and likely its most discussed line. The Muse already carries multiple names across the catalog — Lady, Master Drill Sergeant, Queen of My Morning, Queen Bee, Debra. Lady Blanke is new, and its presence in this poem signals either a private joke between the speaker and the Muse, a reference to a specific occasion, or a playful designation the speaker has invented for the particular admiring moment the poem records. The reader is not expected to decode the name; the name’s function is to be one more way the speaker has of addressing her.

The closing three lines are the poem’s best stretch and the part that elevates the piece beyond its lighter physical-praise body. “As I’m nodding off / I suddenly jump out of bed / to write more beauty” is the catalog’s foundational story compressed into three lines: the speaker is going to sleep, the poem arrives, he gets out of bed. The phrase “to write more beauty” is the poem’s quietest philosophical claim. The writing is treated as additive. The world’s quantity of beauty is increased by the speaker’s nightly habit of jumping out of bed when the poem demands to be transcribed. The line is the most honest description of the catalog’s production method that has appeared in the recent stretch.

Where the poem stays in lighter register rather than fully landing is in the gap between the physical-praise body and the closing’s philosophical reach. The two halves of the poem are doing different work, and the connection between them is not built out. The closing’s “to write more beauty” implies that the ankle, the chin, the derriere were what the speaker jumped out of bed to record, but the implication is left to the reader to assemble. A single bridging line (“the ankle alone was enough to wake me”) might have braided the two halves more tightly. As it stands, the poem is two short poems sharing a page.

A poem that proves the smallest features of a specific person can wake a poet at midnight, and the waking is its own form of love.