You don’t look like the image of “hero,”
unlike the brawny blond athlete who tackled
the last shooter, though as much as the middle-aged lady
who threw herself in front of the rabbi.
Sorry to make you share this poem
with others, but there are so many and we need
to conserve the trees we have left.
Maybe soon we’ll just swap out names
the way Elton John
recycled Marilyn’s song for Diana.
We say the dead live on
in their actions. So you persist in
other students, their bodies intact
because you lunged, almost ready
to throw caps in the air
and head into the rest of their lives.
Maybe this comforts your parents,
everyone still lauding your courage,
though you’ll get knocked off
the news soon enough. One grief
flowing into the next. Children
sitting in classrooms. The next
gun shining somewhere, loaded.