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Nineteenth October
Buckets of ice sit in the cafeteria,
iron-deficient ninth-graders scratching at the entrails and the
waking, breathing numbness.
Blackberries grow sour and stunted in the garden.
The wooden sign in the tangle of tomato bones
whispers:
Pray for rain.
Impossibilities were never achieved
through motivational posters.
A silverfish darts across the desert,
no longer
shining –
You cannot stay here.
My last duchess
is coming to a classroom near you;
but the vending machine over there
has been swallowing little metal men whole
since the dawn.
Three more years and ripped tights
and beauty in yellow walls
Pray for rain.
And are we really the future?
Or the people who will inhabit the future,
or those who are thrown into it against their will,
and what the devil has become of our things?
And will the tomatoes grow again, in the future?
And is there any more ice?
Hello?
Lesson one, day one:
there is no such thing as adults.
Pray for rain.
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