On My Education As A Poet: The Usefulness Of Rhyme

He was our English teacher
most that eighth-grade year—
gawky and tall
bespectacled and bald
and as devoid of warmth
as body fat.

And this demand
which topped it all—
we’d have to memorize
a hundred lines of poetry!
(Uncertain on the quantity
it actually may been more) .

But such were we
and such the time
that we applied
and then amazed ourselves
and in our doing found
the usefulness of rhyme.