they were trying to kill us back then

i remember

the boy, Billy,

who burned himself on the Bunsen

burner

in chemistry lab,

and little Frankie Wallace,

his face

forever scarred by

muriatic acid.

and the girl, Jeannie,

who severed

her arm

in home-ec class while cutting

bread

on a wobbly

cutting board,

then there was

tubby Jimmy Beach,

who lopped

off his finger

in shop class making a

spatula for

his mother for Christmas.

Mickey, who

stabbed his biology

partner, Rizzoli, with a scalpel

after dissecting

the guts of a frog.

the kiln explosions,

the ammonia spills,

all good kids who met

their match,

and countless others

who fell

off the vaulting horse,

missing the mat,

or who ruptured themselves

on the parallel bars,

or who took a shot

off the side of their head

playing murder ball

in Phys-ed.