How right you were, Mrs. Rosine

My eighth grade English teacher made us memorize poems and recite them in front of the class.

“Someday you’ll thank me,” she said. “What if you’re sent to prison? How will you make the time pass?”

Two years later, we stopped for tea with relatives before starting a 200-mile drive.

I gripped my warm mug and eyed the drifting flakes, tuning out my aunt’s cheerful banter.

Then, rolling at last,

The heavens opened

And deposited a great wall of snow in front of our Chevy.

Piled atop each other, we spent the next cramped hours

with

Emily Dickenson

Robert Frost

Edna St. Vincent Millay

and

William Shakespeare