The Class
by Thomas Page
after Derek Walcott
“Batten upon the bloodstream of the veldt. / Corpses are scattered through a paradise”
–“A Far Cry from Africa”
Standing near the theater’s batten
Looking nearly and upon
The stage below. I get vertigo. The
Dizzying makes the bloodstream
On my neck swell causing a sense of
My impeding doom. A grate open like the veldt
Being the perfect shoot for corpses
To fall forty stories down. “We are
Now going to look the machinery” the teacher says through
The expanse. I volunteer to stay on the way, a
View that contains my stable paradise.
Academy of the Heart And Mind 