China Doll
Here's a poem by James Tate, from his 1967 collection The Lost Pilot.

Miss Cho Composes in the Cafeteria

You are so small, I
am not even sure
that you are at all.

To you, I know I
am not here: you are
rapt in writing a

syllabic poem
about gigantic,
gaudy Christmas trees.

You will send it home
to China, and they
will worry about

you alone amid
such strange customs. You
count on your tiny

bamboo fingers; one,
two, three -- up to five,
and, oh, you have one

syllable too much.
You shake your head in
dismay, look back up

to the tree to see
if, perhaps, there might
exist another

word that would describe
the horror of this
towering, tinselled

symbol. And ... now
you've got it! You jot
it down, jump up, look

at me and giggle.