District Annex
by David Rosenthal

The district needs the space for cubicles —
they’ll park their cars where children used to play.

The classrooms will be gutted and rebuilt,
the backstop, slide, and monkey bars will stay;

the rain will turn the garden plot to silt,
the sun will cause the murals to decay;

meanwhile, canvas swings will sag and fray
unused, unless the wind brings ghosts to play.

District Annex – David Rosenthal

Rosenthal lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife and two daughters. He teaches kindergarten and first grade in the Oakland public schools, and he teaches poetry at Cazadero Music Camp and the Writing Salon. His poems and translations have appeared in print and on line in Raintown Review, Measure, The Chimaera, Unsplendid, Blue Unicorn, and several other journals. He has been a Pushcart Prize nominee, a Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award finalist, and a semifinalist for the Richard Wilbur and Donald Justice Poetry Prizes. His website is http://users.lmi.net/rosen4.