I suppose it’s always like that with a teacher.

Everyone wanted his gaze as if it were water at noon.


But it was women who made the food,

women who opened their homes to us,


their quiet daughters standing in the doorway,

the little ones being told to let him rest, let him eat,


and they hadn’t cooked a dish.

It was still the old way


although they all talked about the new way, the new way.

For me it was different.


I know that even when he seemed not to be looking at me, he was.

But of course I was wrong about that too.