Today is also Valentine’s, and so
For the schoolchildren little candy hearts
As we remember from our happy youth
Teenagers like them still, and so they should

Now lessons follow: the four elements
Of Anglo-Saxon poetry, history
Chemistry, a turn in the auto shop:
Yeats’ happy “ceremonies of innocence”

And in the afternoon, Mass, and ashes,
And the cleaners tidy up candy wrappers

                             Instead of corpses