The Flower Answers “Present”

‘The Flower Answers “Present”’

The bell

no longer promises a hubbub;

it is a brief sound

that in the school’s throat

sticks

and will not go down.

The door opens.

The classroom,

like a room holding its breath,

stares at the teacher.

A few benches,

with their empty places,

louder than any cry,

sit.

On the desks

are flowers,

not for congratulations,

but because someone

will never come back,

and this

everyone understands.

Photographs

against the wood of the benches

lean;

as though yesterday

were still here,

but

dared not continue.

The teacher

searches for ‘present’,

but those who answer ‘present’,

in the row of flowers,

are silent.

The chalk

wants to write something;

its hand will not move.

The blackboard’s mouth

is full of darkness,

and no sentence

is enough

for this absence.

Here

death

is no stranger;

it knows the way,

from the street

to the school

it comes unhindered.

The children

are neither absent

nor forgotten;

from the attendance register

they have been crossed out

so that the statistics

stay tidy

and conscience

unquestioned.

And the bell

every day

teaches us:

if a killer

had a conscience,

if they had studied

anything

called a lesson,

they would not leave two hundred children

behind

on their benches.