There on the dining room table are just twenty-five
of the thousands of essays on the poetry of Robert Frost
produced this week alone in the USA, the world leader
in essays on the poetry of Robert Frost.

The essays have to do with ambiguity
in The Road Not Taken, and also ambiguity
in Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.

Every year the English majors of America
must read these poems and analyze their ambiguity,
or compare and contrast their ambiguity,
in five double-spaced pages.

And the English teachers of America
must read these pages
and determine whether they are incisive or not incisive.

I am one of those teachers. I try to do my share.
Because if we don’t do this—if Frost’s ambiguity
is not discussed, and if these discussions are not assessed,
and then finally graded—well, what’s the point of all this?
What are we doing here?

Therefore, I must walk over to the table
and determine whether the essays are incisive or not incisive.

And yet two days have passed, an entire weekend,
and it’s Sunday evening and I’m on my second glass of wine,
and the essays on ambiguity in the poetry of Robert Frost
remain unassessed by me, and this is getting very serious.