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sort of burlesque, that he was using the poet’s manner and material—perhaps his very
name
—to give him the needle. Frost sounded like a man who’d been stung by a taunt, showing he could take it and come back with some chaff of his own. Still, he’d paid George the ultimate compliment of choosing the poem. How hurt could he be?
    I read the poem several times, and began to imagine that maybe it
was
satiric, and thus better than I’d first thought. But George set me straight when I went to his room that afternoon to congratulate him.
    What did you think of the poem, he asked me.
    I like it, way to go! George, you’re going to meet Robert Frost!
    Did you think I was . . . how did Mr. Frost put it—having fun at his expense?
    Well, I guess you could read it that way.
    You could?
    It’s possible.
    Oh, jeez. He slumped like a puppet, taking no care to hide his distress. He still had his tie on, a knitted tie with a flat bottom. It looked crocheted; it looked like a doily. Our biology master wore ties like that but George was the only boy you’d catch dead in one. He was both the oldest and the youngest of us, the most fuddy-duddy and innocent, and I could see that his innocence extended to this question of sardonic intent. His poem, alas, was perfectly serious.
    But you don’t have to read it as parody, I said. You can also read it as tribute. You know, the farm, the folksy tone, the snow. It’s like you’re paying your respects to him—tipping your hat, so to speak.
    Exactly! George sat across from me on his roommate’s bed. That’s exactly how I meant it, as an
homage.
He looked at me with such gratitude that I couldn’t help throwing another log on the fire.
    And of course the title, I said.
    You like the title?
    All those layers of meaning. “First Frost” as in, literally, the first frost of the year. Then there’s the symbolic sense of here comes winter, i.e., death, but also
rest,
right? The snow is soft,
after all,
after all the hard work he’s spent his whole life doing—soft and white like the girl’s hands.
After all,
he’s gonna get what he wants—unless I’m just reading this stuff into it.
    No! No, it’s all there.
    Then, I said, the crowning touch. “First Frost” as in
first,
Frost—as in Frost is tops, Frost is the best, Frost is number one.
    Exactly! Exactly. But it’s not
just
an
homage.
    Of course not. You’d never find that business with the girl in one of his poems. Foaming cream. The pail between her legs. That doesn’t sound like Frost. Doesn’t really sound like you, either, to tell the truth.
    It is something of a new direction for me. He looked down, controlling a smile. I have to admit, the female character got away from me somewhat. Has that ever happened to you—someone you’re writing about suddenly becomes real?
    Now and then.
    She became very real to me. This will sound strange, but I knew her. And I’m not talking about just metaphysically. It was physical too. In fact, when I was working on her part of the poem I found myself in a state of, you know . . . arousal. Has that ever happened to you?
    Nope. I got up to leave. Look, you should probably keep that to yourself, George. You know how immature some of these guys can be.
     
    Once a week the sixth-form Honors English Seminar was invited to eat dinner at the headmaster’s table. He’d once been an English master himself and enjoyed our company, enough to be liable to the charge of favoritism; you’d never find him playing host to Honors Chemistry. He required literary conversation. If a couple of us talked up a book he hadn’t read, he wrote down the title and read it himself, then put us through our paces. Dinner at his table often ran late, the headmaster forcing some booster to explain an enthusiasm he found baffling, while the rest of us, elbows planted in a waste of cups and napkins and half-eaten rolls, chimed in with our own judgments and dissents. The headmaster took the gloves off and let us do