I read them because I had to,

            The poems,

            Because I needed the grade

 

            They came in all sizes, by which I mean lengths,

            And shapes, by which I mean arrangements on the page

 

            Occasionally a word would hit me like a pistol shot

            Or the sudden aroma of wet grass

            And between shots and shoots my mind began to wander about

 

            Miss Evans, with her thin red lips and

            Green bewitching eyes often sighed

            When I came up short by missing the ‘theme’

 

            Because every poem, she said, was arranged around a theme

            And when you saw it the words would fit together

            Neatly as base pairs on a strand of DNA

 

            To make her point she used a big red piece of chalk

            To make a thin red line that cinched a poem together

            Like a purse

            And all the crazy words that punched or made me shudder

            Slipped back into the ranks like chastened soldiers

            At the sound of their sergeant’s bark

 

            From what I could tell the themes couldn’t tell me anything I hadn’t 

            already known: that life was short, love (even puppy love) mostly 

            breathed and looked closely enough at something – or someone

 

            I spent most of my time in class

            Looking pretty closely at

            Miss Evans’ thin red lips and

            Green bewitching eyes

 

            Wondering how in the world she could turn the

            Eiffel Tower into an edifice, Notre Dame a church and         

            Paris a city of ordinary girls

 

            When at last I got up the gumption

            The theme was so obvious

            It took an eternity before she cracked a smile