A boy staring intently out his classroom window
at an American Goldfinch, fails
to hear the Active Shooter Drill or his teacher,
until he hears shooting in the hall.
There is shouting and a locked door being tried.
He takes his drill station in the closet, squeezing
in beside classmates and the frenzied collective of their racing hearts
and ragged breathing. With closed and opened eyes
they search the overheated corners of prayer. Will they ever forget
these drills or the lesson that this, too, is what it means to be American?