Safety Drill

The notice from my daughter’s school about the next

safety drill arrives in my inbox the weekend

before her first hunting trip. The notice from my daughter’s

school does not mention the words intruder or gunman, my daughter

does not know the meaning of mass shooting. The notice assures us,

teachers will present the information in age-appropriate terminology:

When I say go, we will play a game. She is at the table with her father,

learning how pheasants take cover in the chokecherry, safe

until forced to fly. We will pretend the man in the hall is hunting—

Yes, like hide and seek. The teacher practices cowering with the children,

keeps them quiet, remembers her training: gathers heavy books

to throw. My daughter remembers her father, tender,

teaching her how hunters flush bouquets of birds into the wind,

teaching her to anticipate his shot so she isn’t afraid.

I remember her first lost tooth, her first snow

angels in the yard. The day they reported gunshots

at an elementary school in Texas, I drove to her school

in Ohio and sat in the parking lot, trembling as I watched

the first graders run on the playground and the radio reported

eye-witness accounts of parents in Texas pleading with officers,

parents sneaking inside, searching coveys of classrooms as the shots

rang in their teeth. The death toll will be nineteen

children, and when my own child bounds to the car, iridescent

with innocence, I do not tell her the reason for my tears. I tell her

feathers found caught in the cattails are lucky, I tell her falling

raindrops taste like lemon drops, and the villains in stories

are just stories, not real, I tell her to play a game

when she’s afraid: to fold her wings and hide

like a pheasant in the field, I tell her to be so still the sky will tilt

to kiss her face. Just wait—we will always come and find you, of course,