Emily Kirchner

This place exists twice a day,
in the moments when a broken clock is right.
After all notes are erased from the blackboard,
conjugated into chalk dust,
this foundation of irony stands.

High school, a place of growth
lives in stasis,
now growing mold
in the echo of last bell.

In the hallway, unplugged computers
become mirrors, not Windows.

Graduation caps suspended in midair,
collecting cobwebs.

Textbooks lay splayed to reveal
Problems solved, not answered.

Rows of lockers yawn open
No longer biting down
on chewed pencils or secret notes.

Drinking fountains shut off
after the fountain of youth
quenched its thirst.

Rain-dripping ceiling
Taps out Morse code memories.

Mural in the empty gym reads:
"Go Panthers! We're number one!"
In here, time is a panther never pouncing
Nothing to hunt
Cocooned in vines and strands of sunlight,
Metamorphosed into a house cat.

Dusty auditorium stage
amplifies silence.
Actors' lines scattered through the school
as they stage dived
into the twenty-first century.
Now we sit in intermission.

Shadows are pinned to the floor
where Peter Pan never lands.
He just basks overhead,
languishing
As the lost boys and girls gather
to find themselves.