Editor’s Note: This is an anniversary not to be celebrated but to be remembered. On May 24, 2022, an armed teenager entered the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas and fatally shot 21 people (19 children and two teachers) and injured 18 others in one of the deadliest school shootings in American history.
Author’s Note: Two images kept repeating themselves in my mind after the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. One was the irony of the school being decorated for the end-of-school celebrations when this happened, and it being the “ending”, juxtaposed with “beginnings”. The other was a news item I read about a teacher being questioned on whether she had locked her classroom door. I imagined her haunted by second-guessing. I imagined the horrors faced by everyone involved, including the school janitor.
Back to School
For the purple polka-dotted
welcome-back-to-school signs
festooned on doors.
For the teacher in Uvalde who
said she locked her classroom door,
how every night her dreams rehearse
her hand on the knob.
For bulletin boards filled with wide-
ruled stories of summer adventures.
For the desks in Uvalde, piled with
gold-stickered certificates from
awards day, and for the students folded
underneath. For the girls excited
to get Mrs. Grundy next year, because
she lets you make macramé plant hangers
and put your head down after lunch.
For the janitor in Uvalde, sobbing
in the supply room, as he watches
the water run red to clear from
the mop in his gray utility sink.
♦
Ellis Elliott likes to divide her time, as much as possible, between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the ocean. She is a writer, leader of online writing groups, and teacher of ballet. Elliott has a blended family of six grown sons and lives with her husband in Juno Beach, Florida. She is a contributing writer for the Southern Review of Books, and recently completed an MFA at Queens University. Website: www.elliselliottpoet.com
The Delmarva Review is a national literary journal published in St. Michaels, Maryland, to give writers a desirable home in print (with a digital edition) presenting their most compelling new prose and poetry to discerning audiences everywhere. This is a time when many commercial print publications have closed their doors or are reducing literary content. For each annual edition, the editors have read thousands of submissions to select the best of new poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. The review is available from online booksellers and regional specialty bookstores. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, support comes from tax-deductible contributions and a grant from Talbot Arts with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council. Website: www.DelmarvaReview.org
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