Sentenced

by Paul Hostovsky

They found the perpetrators.

The ones who committed those unspeakable acts.

Acts that were so unspeakable

they were all over the news

so we all heard about them

and could only cover our mouths

and wonder how such people could do such things.

They found them and they arrested them

and they tried them and found them guilty. And the judge,

who was a very wise judge,

pronounced sentence: Begin again.

They must all begin again. Go back

and learn again the things we learned as children,

things they either never learned in the first place

or else somehow unlearned in the unspeakable,

unforgiving place the world has always been

and will always be.

Things about being

with other people, about sharing, and keeping

your hands to yourself,

and laying your head down on your desk

in the crook of your elbow.

And so they were remanded

to kindergarten, each to a different

kindergarten, so they couldn't sit next to each other

and scoff, and keep each other from learning.

On the first day

the ringleader was brought in in shackles

before the bell rang,

and made to sit in one of the tiny desks,

so his knees came up to his chin. And when the children arrived

they noticed him right away, and gathered around him

timidly, curiously, a few emboldened to ask

questions, the kinds of questions only children

will ask: Are those real handcuffs? Are you

our new teacher? Are you Miss Butler’s boyfriend?

And one of them climbed up into his lap, and one of them

rested a small hand on his huge shoulder,

and one, a girl, gazed up long and searchingly

into his dark, flitting, downcast eyes.