Ukraine – 16 Disappearance Of The Outside by Walter Bargen

The brick wall of the elementary school has a hole 
That wasn’t there yesterday. 
A crowd gathers on the sidewalk and decides 
If it was a 3rd grade student who just couldn’t take it 
any longer and squeezed through to the other side. 
Inside the classroom, Struwelpeter is shelved between 
Mickey Mouse and Yertle the Turtle. The waste paper basket 
filled with so many attempts at fields of sunflowers 
and blue skies overflows and now drifts across the cold floor. 

The wall too thick for someone so young, 
who knows so little patience, armed only
with a kitchen spoon. What’s left is anyone’s guess. 
The crowd’s shocked stares try not to see any further in. 

Or maybe it was the postman who couldn’t find 
the mailbox, crushed by a heavy-treaded steel beast. 
Or this is just the way to pass secret endearments 
to the teacher even if a short ladder 
is needed to reach the hole’s crumbling edges. 

Or was this a grand philosophical statement 
of liberation to let the inside out and the outside in,
worthy of Hryhoriy Skovoroda.  A classroom open 
to the world with the  traffic noise always headed
out of town as the hungry machines 
hunt hither and thither.

But, at least, what’s in can get out
if another shell is lobbed at the school,
if there are any children still holding on 
to their final breath before recess
in the dark inside, facing the darker outside
where they both disappear.