The School of Dreams

It is an afternoon
With chalk dust in the light.
The dusk is coming soon
And the answer is not right.

The answer is not right
And the bell is going to ring,
And red ink, like a blight,
Has tainted everything:

The leaves upon the trees,
The leaves that fall and rest,
The light, that by degrees,
Is failing in the west,

Everything will burn
With a shade of shame,
Because it is your turn,
Because you hear your name,

And cannot solve for y.
Minutes go to waste,
The slate blank as a sky,
Imperfectly erased.

The bell is going to chime.
There’s nothing you can do
But to flip a dime
Between false and true.

The problem still remains,
It isn’t what you think.
Failure’s in your veins,
Red as any ink.

© A. E. Stallings—This poem first appeared in Poetry