Classroom Walls

White-chalked notes smeared murky

blackboards border the periphery

linked in paper DNA strands like

cut-out dolls in a class project.

.

Flags, crafted by students, used for experiments,

flap in ventilated currents;

suspended from ceiling via clothespin twine

like one-thousand paper cranes, unfolded.

.

Old bulletin covers torn to expose

pitted cork littered in ripped-off paper triangles

arrested beneath staples. Four classroom walls exposed,

stripped to bare cinder.

.

Fabricated breeze frenzies flags to fright;

Thrusted memories flutter between sheeted ripples.

One flag, unpinned, floats

to crumple and fold into hands, outstretched.

.

All of it. Pressed into a small, cardboard box

spread apart, adhesive slipping

The bottom splits, spewing its contents

throughout the hall.

I scramble--hands and knees--after.

.

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