The school board

A tightly woven agenda
permits no cracks,

for unscheduled
rank and file voices

to seep in. Hands go
up in unison, called

democracy- blockading
dissent like the Berlin wall.

Tenured trustees use sharpened,
fine-tipped pencils and smooth-

edged rulers, to craft solutions
to problems like attrition

that live outside the grid
of excel spreadsheets, in abandoned
spaces between us and them.

Proclamations of "We",
broadcast by unsuspecting
megaphones- offered up
like spoonfuls of saccharin

that wont go down
    constricted
      channels
           of
      hardened
   conversation

Unqualified to perform
conversational bypass,
I opt for shock therapy


“TEAR DOWN THESE WALLS!”