WEBVTT

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This is a little
poem called Drill.

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And it's for a friend
of mine, John Skoyles.

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It's about all those
air-raid drills

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that we had when we
were kids in school.

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It's about just afterwards.

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When the buzzer sounded
again, the children

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got up from under their desks
and brushed off their knees.

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The flies and the light
fixtures continued to sleep.

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The hydrangeas went on
nodding their soft blue heads

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against the windows.

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The clock was still running.

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There was no blood on the floor.

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But some of the children
listened uneasily

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to the high drone of a plane.

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While others picked up their
pencils and went back to work,

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drawing spiders and flames
in the margins of notebooks.

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It was an ordinary
day, belonging

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to others, touched briefly
by the future, which

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was theirs to survive.

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