by Ginny Lowe Connors
As of August 27, there had been 44 school shootings this year alone.
And then today...
No poem, no melody can ever drown out
the sounds that follow this child,
the pop pop of an automatic weapon,
screams of classmates,
friend, blabbermouth, violinist,
pencil-chewer, joker, soccer champ—
each one turned into a victim photo
on the evening news.
No cartoon, no billboard can ever block out
the sights that haunt this child,
the boy who fell on top of him, how he shook
and went still, the teacher shielding two girls
with her own body, the book on the floor,
pages slowly turning red.
How do we hold him,
how do we shelter
his splintered glass heart?
This is an American story
that has no end. A ten-year-old
goes to school one day and returns home,
just blinking and blinking.
He no longer speaks.
Ginny Lowe Connors is the author of six poetry collections, the most recent of which is White Sail at Midnight. Among her awards are the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize, Atlanta Review’s Grand Prize, the NFSPS Founders Award, Passager Poetry Contest Winner, and Poet of the Year (New England Association of Teachers of English). She holds an MFA in poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts. As publisher of her own press, Grayson Books, Connors has edited several poetry anthologies. A Board Member of the Connecticut Poetry Society, she is also Managing Editor of Connecticut River Review.