High School

Everyone must go there.
None returns.

One sees the boys get into line,
their first mustache more like a wish
above their lips. The girls stand
parallel and pure, some of them bleeding.
all of them afraid. They've seen

their older sisters taken. They have seen
their older brothers, too,
assimilated, saturated, swept.

The hot brick building is a kind of furnace.
They're its fuel.

The hot brick building is a kind of maw
that feeds to frenzy.

Everyone must go there.
None returns.