No Kids of Their Own - Sept 25 2025

 

No Kids of Their Own

Sept 25 2025

I walk the dogs across the schoolyard

in the approaching dark

after school’s out.

The flotsam of lost hats and mitts

punctuates the trampled grass

with vibrant spots of colour.

There are even warm coats

where they were excitedly dropped 

and somehow never missed.

The dogs sniff, fascinated

by the unfamiliar smells

of little kids.

Every 4 or so years

I’m permitted to breech the walls

and enter its hallowed halls

to vote.

I glimpse dollhouse tables and cute little chairs,

note the art

proudly taped to the walls,

breathe in the same school smell

as when I was a kid;

reassured

that some things don’t change

despite the passage of years.

The buffed terrazzo halls.

The motivational posters

with uplifting clichés.

The heavy classroom doors

all firmly closed,

and the polished hardwood floors

on the basketball court

where I’m instructed to vote.

The dogs are having a field day,

playing tug-of-war and keep-away

with an orphaned glove.

I give up on rescuing it

and let them have their fun;

it’s permanent recess, for pups.

But we are visitors, mere passers-by.

While inside, the school is a safe place

where strange men

with fond memories

and no kids of their own

are only allowed to enter

when governments fall.

When their footsteps echo off empty halls

and firmly barred doors

in the institutional quiet,

self-conscious

inside the sheltering walls

of the neighbourhood school. 

Walking the dogs (off-leash, as this scofflaw always stubbornly walks them) across the schoolyard after dark, I often have the disconcerting feeling that I would be seen as that suspicious single man who is to be kept from that warm brightly lit place I glimpse through the windows. Especially after seeing the sign in the front glass doors, which goes something like “All visitors please call (insert secretary’s phone number) to receive permission to enter.”  

And when it becomes my polling place on voting day, I walk down the empty halls  — gleaming with polished floors, and oddly quiet — and feel as if I don’t belong: an intruder, given special dispensation for only as long as it takes to vote.

And, of course, school is a safe place. Should also feel that way. Sometimes, unfortunately for some kids, safer than home.