I Declined Beauty's Invitation

I declined beauty’s invitation she approached in shadow cool and yielding to the eye a momentary nakedness not thrilling as flesh illicitly exposed but soothing like truth perhaps if there were such a thing damp and rich as soil after the rain possessed of scent and curve grey and subtle brown delicious in her nuance but I withdrew too clothed to contemplate without shame a thing of such manifest reality too crude to entertain a passion without lust or consummation