2013 -- 6.1 (Fall) Poetry

Dominoes

By C.E. Churchill


We line up outside the schoolhouse,

Trembling in our skirts and shorts.

The wind feeds on our shivers

As it races over our bare skin,

Waiting.

Pressed up so close to one another,

We feel each and every shudder

That racks through our bodies

Like a sick ricochet of domino pieces,

Helpless as force and fate knocks them all down.

In our useless winter coats,

We line up outside the schoolhouse,

The chill of the weather nothing

Compared to the ice that freezes our hearts

As the gunman pulls the trigger.

One by one, we fall.

Like domino pieces.