The text alerts come first,
then the aerial footage of the parking lot,
red and blue lights washing over the stucco walls
while parents wait behind the yellow tape.

On the television, the spokesmen take their places
to recite the standard liturgy.
They call it an unspeakable tragedy,
an isolated act of evil,
a storm that no one could have predicted.

They use the word freedom like an armour
to deflect the obvious questions,
as if the right to hold a chambered round
carries a weight that children’s bones must bear.

The rest of the world looks on through the screen,
standing in countries where the playgrounds are quiet,
where laws were rewritten the very first time the blood spilled.
We watch them throw their hands up in the air,
claiming the machinery is too vast to stop,
the problem too complex to solve.

So the bells ring,
the desks are cleared,
and the smallest citizens are left to learn the math
of a nation that loves the metal
more than the pulse beneath it.