Colleen M. Farrelly

Weeds

I walk past it while I’m home to visit friends. Thankfully, it’s summer, and the walk involves greenery and neighborly hellos rather than gray snowbanks and frozen slush on the sidewalk grates. The building is a discarded brick shell now, prime real estate with a “for sale” sign near the overgrown steps leading into the old English classroom.

The manor never had bars on the windows or deadbolted doors. A few students regularly trekked from the juvenile center to our classes. Others showed up sporadically. Or never.

I still remember one of the younger students’ mop of curls and dimples, the sketches of motorcycle designs accompanying another student’s essay, the casts and sling sported by one student who’d been assaulted the prior night.

a budding daisy
strangled in the weeds –
kids in prison.