Unfinished Business (The Lockdown)

Did you think you were cool? to call in a threat? You Columbine copy-cat, you coward, you fool? Teachers hear the “code,” Teachers who’ve been trained to hope for the best prepare for the worst, the worst that could possibly happen at this or any school Students thought it strange, didn’t get the news, saw my fast moves, the blinds drawn door locked hands that shook the lights off “In the corner, NOW!” I pointed, afraid that life or death, my own, my students’ hung in the air I’m not the self-sacrificing sort, or so I thought, wedged between my students and the door, the worry-wart, the mother hen, knowing I would hurl myself at the gunman, at the trenchcoat, so that younger faster bodies could escape. Still, I hoped, some of the boys would join me. “Fight or Flee, do SOMETHING,” the mantra learned at Virginia Tech, the lesson learned the hard way. Teen bodies sweat, now, the smell of fear, the floor hard, so cold, the dark, afraid to whisper, we listen for sounds footsteps, whispers, gunshots, anything, outside that door. Nobody knows… “What’s going on?” Chairs scrape upstairs: “Fools!” I think, half hope the noise draws the gunman away from here, but that I’m wrong, it’s a scare, all at once. Hunger now, stomachs growl, it’s schools end, we’re finally fed And if we could find you, the fool, so cruel, who started this it’s YOU we’d feed on, US you’d fear, a collective pride, of Panthers on the prowl.