A Wrinkle in Rhyme

When I decided to have my students read "Light breaks where no sun shines," a poem by Dylan Thomas, I chose it because it was cryptic and dark, but also optimistic; I thought it would be a nice challenge for my honors students. Maybe my brain wasn't working at five in the morning when I chose it or maybe I'm just an obtuse moron, but I completely missed:

A candle in the thighs
Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of age;
Where no seed stirs,
The fruit of man unwrinkles in the stars,
Bright as a fig;
Where no wax is, the candle shows its hairs.

I was was lucky that my students were just as dense as I was. I picked up on it halfway throught the day when I asked, "What does he mean 'the fruit of man unwrinkles?'" but fortunately no one noticed what I noticed, and I skipped it and moved on. When I got to my last period, I realized what was going on in the whole stanza, plus I had asked them to identify the central image of each stanza. Fact: It only takes one kid to figure it out, especially when it is the most vocal kid in the class.

Needless to say, I had to play it off like it was no big deal, but if you know anything about a room full of teenagers who have discovered something even remotely dirty, even "honors" students, that is easier said than done. But they were honors kids, so I just explained that in a poem that addresses rebirth, the phallic imagery of this stanza is merely illustrating how the next generation brings hope and "burns the seeds of age," and that procreation is necessary for the hopes of any generation. I'm not sure if they bought it.