Orbit

Any given year

we finish and

they leave. We

finish and I

stay. I often

wonder about

the mysteries they

will peel away

and when; about

what they’ll do

and see as they

round the brick

corners; about

who they will

throw their hat

over the wall

for. As I think

about teaching

again the inverse

relationship

between liberty

and security to

a new group of

fresh faces, and

how Woodrow

Wilson might have

been a prophet or

a glass-headed

crazy man, a girl

on the front row begins

to draw, in the last few

moments of the semester,

using a pack

of Orbit gum—spearmint—

as a straight edge, her

design seeming to

bend back to

its beginning.