Like a worm in a robin’s beak,
today a word in my mouth squiggled away.

My student’s eyes were brown
with gold and green flecks
and the lashes

precise strokes of black paint,
like a portrait in a quiet, empty gallery.

I stood before her face
and the word would not come back,
it seemed to spiral

the way a twig does
when you throw it off a little bridge,

the gulf between us growing faster and faster,
the twig rushing away from me.