Areopagitica

One day in ninth grade
At Lutheran school
The call came down
For us to remove
All the books by
Atheist authors
We checked our lockers
Our science rooms
As trash bins filled up
In the library
All the books by
Muslim authors
And like a Jesus
In the marketplace
My English teacher
Burst in red-faced
He tried to stop us
He screamed and begged
He tried to turn us all
From our mistake
He grabbed a bust of John Milton’s head
He threw it crashing down on pavement
All the books by
Gay, black authors
He lost his job and retirement
But I think I get now what he really meant
All the books by
Fluid authors