The Tone

It wasn’t a bell, it was a steady tone.
We folded our papers and closed our books.
Raised the wood lids of our metal desks.
Books placed inside, pens lined neatly in the tray.
Lunches taken out, necks of the brown bags
rolled and sweaty in our fists. Mrs. Flint
blowing the whistle that hung always around her neck.
Lining, in alphabetical order according to surname,
first name in the case of there being two Smiths,
along the east wall, away from the windows.
Us reciting our names, her checking the roster.
Her opening the classroom door and us waiting
for her to step to head the line. Shuffling forward
like a many-legged worm. Peter Zeigler delegated
to close the door and shut the lights. Merging
behind homerooms 212 and 214, single file against
both sides of the hallway, using banisters
as we carefully descended the stairs. One flight
then the next, turning into a basement corridor
and a room without window or light. Each class
instructed to sit Indian-style on the floor.
To press our faces into our open, knitted hands.
To keep eyes closed. To wait.
And the mindless way we executed our submission—
not running as we fled down corridors
for our lives, not wriggling, not poking
each other, not spitting or talking or committing
small crimes of recess mayhem, not rehearsing our
willful farts, not wadding our sandwiches into balls
and winging them against the cinderblock, not
asking to be let upstairs to pee or what to do
when the flash came that would reveal to us
the bones in our hands through our downed eyelids
not asking what comes later not asking anything
of proof or purpose beyond the insistent tone.