Real Life Parable 1

In my ninth grade English class, we read Emily Dickinson's
A Narrow Fellow in the Grass and were asked to interpret it. I, being me, confidently raised my hand and gave almost a line by line analysis about how it symbolized death, going so far as to cross cultural interpretations of death as a figure to make it fit this interpretation. To this my teacher said, "OK".

Then my good friend Matt raised his hand and said, "It's about a snake."

To this my teacher said, "That's correct."

Don't overthink interpretation, friends, especially with art.