Pardon the Interruption

PARDON THE INTERRUPTION

Just as something real begins 

to sink beneath the aluminum

desktops, even the torn pages

of the graffitied textbook colored

with a story worth believing, the bell

will ring or someone will need to

use the restroom or there’s the fire drill

you forgot about or maybe a real fire,

and up in steam will go any embers of lasting 

change, which would be strange 

if this weren’t the way it’s always been, 

the hallways we shuffle between

forever shadowed by the principal

-ities whose work behind the scenes

is to ensure that—by whatever means 

necessary—things keep running.