Pushes her black hair behind her
left ear quickly
Eyebrows furrowed, concentrating on a straight line
Erases the facts and figures
Plays with the numbers hurriedly
Ankles crossed, sitting hunched over today's math homework
Sits up, adjusts her comfortable purple shirt, tucks her hair up again
She makes every number gracefully, the curves of the 9's and 6's like the curve
of a swan's neck
Taps her pencil eraser on the table,
impatient to understand
She'll be glad when summer comes
Glances up for just a second, looking for
affirmations for her complaints
Then her eyes are back to the graph paper,
The last problem