Melanie Power
Elegy for Booth
If our school had a motto,
we didn’t know it—
but by heart we’d memorised
the math of how many late slips
equalled detention, how many
detentions equalled suspension—
which was when you were
so wayward the principal
just gave you a day off
in congratulation.
For a decade after its closure,
the building sat in purgatory,
red brick facade defaced
by layers of bubble graffiti,
aerosol paint of teenagers
still seeking salvation
in the uncertain dark of those years—
not unlike us, sixteen,
backlot smokes at recess,
skipping class for drive-through Ice Caps,
bathroom vodka & hotboxing,
swapping spit at gym dances.
Known as a school of rejects—
skeets, teen mothers, freaks,
Booth was like a stable
for the city’s wildest horses
who had spoiled their chances
in better ranches,
but don’t forget that before
they declared it an eyesore,
before being bought,
demolished by yellow bulldozers,
it stood, solid steel and concrete,
for fifty long years,
shuffling thousands of students
from its locker-lined halls
into the real world.
To us, it was known
as the school that let us
keep our wildness,
and the longstanding rumour,
we still pretend, is true:
that on some inaccessible floor,
there really was a pool.