nd to is the scent of numbers and grades:
Here is where the poem's "memory" of the childhood experience presents us with an opened window into our own experiences of youth. The majority of persons will remember the high school classroom, math class in particular, for its dullness, a dullness punctuated only occasionally by the sudden tension of a pop quiz or long-feared examination. Math is the ultimate high school symbol for academic accomplishment: one either can or cannot do it, there is no "faking" the essay or fudging the question of grammar with the excuse of "expressing" oneself. In "One Girl at the Boys Party" math is much like sex and the teenage passion for it: there is much boring talk but only one do-or-don't proof of proficiency. This is the tension of youth, a tension this poem captures with a wry, erotic calculation:
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