W. Vandoren Wheeler

I turned their desks into kid-sized
tanks impervious to bullets, knives,
IED’s, mean words, and bad news.


I turned the teachers into fire-
eating tiger-eagles that ate
the bad man’s head.


I turned his assault rifle into a super soaker
that spurted out rainbow bubbles.
The confused kids giggled.


I turned his 30-round magazines
into thirty round magazines.
This is ridiculous.


I turned the shooter back into a boy,
and after he said, Bang, yer dead!
the children yelled back, Bang! YOU
are dead. Then they all chased
each other around till snack time.


I convinced God to turn
the school’s hallway into
the shooter’s grief.
He wandered its labyrinth
until he fell asleep.


I turned the shooter into a minotaur
and his hooves fumbled the gun.

The minotaur ate one child,
was too full to eat more.


I taught the children how
to turn thin as paper.

I taught the children how
to hide inside their shadows.


I turned into a pro wrestler, the shooter
into a skinny hurt kid I hugged to death.
I kept whispering through my mask,
“I am sorry, but you
just don’t belong here.”


I turned into a prescient robocop poet
that knows before people get sadistically angry
and it fires a perfectly placed couplet bullet
into their heads, and their sadnesses
leak out, and they press a hand
against the word-wound in their head,
or take a nap instead, or go for a walk.


I turned the children into fireworks
that specked the walls.
They re-formed as a flock of snow
geese that flew over the school.

They flew over the school.

One boy goose pooped on the school roof.  He loved it.


I turned the bullets into multi-colored rubber balls.
It was exhilarating fun until a blue one
hit a girl in the eye and her parents sued me.


I am speechless.


I turned into the first child
shot dead, then the second child
shot dead, etc. Has it worked yet?


I turned God back into a whirlwind,
and he destroyed the whole school,
the shooter, the teachers, all
the children. At least then
it wasn’t our fault.

Posted 12/26/12

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