"Write fourteen lines on Growing Up, a sonnet,"
the teacher told us. "Don't forget, the rhymes
must make a pattern; I've told you several times.
The subject's easy. You've all got ideas on it."

Who does he think I am? Some second Milton?
Another Shakespeare? An Eliot? A Tennyson?
Compared to theirs, my mind's as dead as venison,
slightly less fresh than over-ripened Stilton.

"A poem's the equivalent in words
of something I once felt," the poet said.
Clues to another's feelings, like the sherds

of ancient pots, or jigsaws in the head.
A few curt words my feelings clearly tell,
one simple sentence: Growing Up is hell.