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Subject To Change

By Marilyn Taylor Marilyn Taylor

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—

the two delusions we all move among.

Source: Poetry (August 2002).

Biography

Marilyn Taylor attended the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she earned a BS in mass communications, and the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, where she earned an MA in linguistics and a PhD in creative writing. She has published eight collections of poetry, most recently Going Wrong (2009) and The Seven Very Liberal Arts (2006). The Wisconsin poet laureate from 2009 to 2010, Taylor also served as the poet laureate . . .

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