FLOOD

The hallway is an empty

riverbed, smooth and barren.

At three o’clock classroom

doors open like dams.

            Gullies of teens stream

out, to become one

           flowing body. A torrent

of fauxhawks and ponytails

           channels along the linoleum.

           The drowned boy floats along

just below the surface,

           caught in an undercurrent,

bobbing past the

           sightless stares of teachers.

He bumps into lockers, is

           scraped along concrete walls,

swirled in and out of bathroom stalls,

            whirled past indifferent

                      pools of preoccupation

                                to be swept out in a current

                                of apathy and oversight

          into a sea of needles

and

     broken

glass.