Schoolsville
The population ages but never graduates.
on hot afternoons
they sweat the final in the park
and when it’s cold
they shiver around stoves
reading disorganized essays out loud.
A bell rings on the hour
and everybody zigzags
into the streets with their books.
The girl who signed her papers in lipstick
leans against the drugstore, smoking,
brushing her hair like a machine.
Their grades are sewn into their clothes
Like references to Hawthorne.
D for “divorcee” perhaps?
Billy Collins
Posted over on Contemporary Poetry Review
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