Our 8th grade English teacher loved this poem.

She raved about it for weeks as she set the assignment for each one of us to recite it in front of the class. Without looking at it.

I’m so confident that my 8th grade English teacher did not have a teaching certificate, that I would pay $500 to anyone who could prove it.

I don’t know where she came from. I’m pretty sure she was a last second Hail Mary from the Board of Education.

But I remember studying this poem and committing it to my memory.

I remember volunteering to go first.

I remember being the only one to recite it fully without assistance.

I remember my 8th grade English teacher gushing with praise.

I remember it being left off my progress report.

Twenty-five years ago.

It has a much different meaning today than it did to thirteen-year-old me.

These don’t belong with middle school children. They belong to middle-aged heartbreakers.