I Don’t Like Mondays
Starting Monday
I’ll cut out gluten I’ll cut
in line cut two holes
in a paper bag
not for my eyes
but for yours
as of Monday I don’t eat
processed foods I don’t eat
at all I have undergone a process
that allows me to subsist on ghosts
I mean to say I eat only the spirits
of the men I’ve ghosted
as of Monday
I’ll steal away I’ll steal the remote I’ll be a remote
possibility like Blockbuster
closing like Borders closing like borders
closing like Tower Records closing
like being shot from a tower
at the University of Texas
on a Monday like being shot
at a place you take shots
while a man yells
get out of my country
the ghosts tell me
I need to stop it’s always
too soon to talk
they say welcome
to the gun show
they say everything beautiful
deserves to have a good time
A.L.I.C.E.
an easy to remember acronym for responding to an active school shooter
The kindergartners have trouble keeping still.
Mrs. M— pretends to
ALERT
the authorities while I
LOCKDOWN
doors draw blinds remind
the children to lie flat.
There could be
shattered glass
we tell them. Be sure
you keep your head
on a colored carpet square.
I could tell you about the desert
they leave
at those knee-high workspaces
caramel table tops sown
with ripped paper cacti
scraps of saguaro blooms.
Or the way my son’s
shoulder-length hair flares
around him
in a
Tesla coil
crown.
The static it turns out
is just his hair trying to get as far away
from itself
as possible.
But it’s not beautiful
obedience. It’s
bumped heads
it’s
he’s laying on my sleeve
it’s
Ineedtopee
while the PA system
INFORMS
an active shooter is on the way.
I remember climbing under desks at their age
threading my hands
across my neck
for earthquake drills
Now
a janitor plays the part of a Bad Man
rattling classroom doors
and Mrs. M—
strategizes
how she’d
COUNTER
the attack
if he got in.
A.L.I.C.E. advises
in extreme circumstances it’s best to
EVACUATE
put as much distance as you can
between yourself
and your attacker.
That like earthquakes
it’s a not a matter of whether the slip
will happen
but how close
to the epicenter
your children are.
Dana Koster is the author of Binary Stars (Carolina Wren Press, 2017). She was a Wallace Stegner Fellow. Her poems have appeared in EPOCH, Indiana Review, Southern Humanities Review, The Cincinnati Review, MUZZLE, Thrush Poetry Journal, The Collagist and many others. She lives in Modesto, California with her husband and two sons, where she works as a wedding photographer.