Subject to Change

                   —A reflection on my students

They are so beautiful, and so very young

they seem almost to glitter with perfection,

these creatures that I briefly move among.

I never get to stay with them for long,

but even so, I view them with affection:

they are so beautiful, and so very young.

Poised or clumsy, placid or high-strung,

they're expert in the art of introspection,

these creatures that I briefly move among—

And if their words don't quite trip off the tongue

consistently, with just the right inflection,

they remain beautiful. And very young.

Still, I have to tell myself it's wrong

to think of them as anything but fiction,

these creatures that I briefly move among—

Because, like me, they're traveling headlong

in that familiar, vertical direction

that coarsens beautiful, blackmails young,

and turns to phantoms those I move among.

Marilyn L. Taylor

© 2002; originally printed in Poetry magazine.
Reprinted by permission.