On the projector screen, two boys stalk 
through a high school cafeteria, sidestepping 
overturned chairs and abandoned bookbags, 
brandishing semi-autos with the insensate
authority of scepter-wielding tyrants. 

They fire into the backs of the kids scurrying 
toward the exits, easy as blockbuster heroes 
dropping henchmen, and I’m certain 
this is how they see themselves: a force 
vital to maintaining the planet’s proper tilt.

It’s not until the video is over that the brawny 
officer manning the projector reveals 
it is simulated security cam footage. 
This is what could happen, he warns, 
if you’re not prepared, and how pleased 

he appears to have duped us, this sheepish 
troupe of teachers, bespectacled and arthritic, 
who have never had to face down an assailant 
with anything more than the modest armor 
afforded us by language. I want to tell him 

that everyone knows what it means 
to be pummeled with their own fists by those 
who believe strength is in the holding, not 
the letting go. If only I could show him
how, in the icy quiet before I begin a lesson,

when the students are slumping into the room 
like lineup suspects behind a two-way mirror, 
I’ll inevitably imagine a gun leveled at my skull, 
the slugs tearing through tissue and bone, 
heedless as arena-bound bulls. If only

he could understand, this man in his combat 
boots and tactical polo, that there is nothing
left to learn about death. Instead, I turn 
my attention to the voices drifting 
in from the quad outside, the young people 

greeting each other like finches warbling 
amidst the branches of saplings, high enough 
off the ground that no one can reach them.