"The Labels," A Poetry Post

In some schools there are labels.

The students who have special needs are
clearance meats.
They are cheaper to educate due to
government subsidies.
Schooling them is a
profit-loss endeavor,
and it is done
(almost solely)
to avoid department waste.

We place them in the clearance section and
stamp them "reduced value,"
hoping that someone will
take them off our hands if the
dates and notations
precede the point of
"total loss."

During reviews,
we face them red side out,
hiding the decay and gray resulting from
days and days of neglect.

The students who can't read are
endcap specialties.
Their weaknesses are paraded before the public as
bargaining chips to draw in
unwitting investors,
who will later find specialties
just as branded
in the center aisle.

The student-parents and dropouts are daily specials
allowed to replenish themselves in
a never-ending supply to advertise for
sympathy from charitable eyes.

And the bright kids are the bread and butter,
products so esteemed that
any price could be required and the
backers would pay, and pay, and pay:
pay for their preserves, pay for their big cheese,
pay for their concentrates, pay for their cream.

Gangbangers and drug dealers? No longer inventoried,
but moved for disposal, left to ride out their shelf-life in the
back.

Prostitutes and bullies? High carb starches.
Not recommended, but hardly discouraged.

Athletes and artists? Grains.
Served more often.

Teachers?
Trash.

And anybody not labeled?
Well, we'll figure that out
next quarter.

-T. D. James-Moss