The Quiet Sharpener’s Cry

The sudden grind

slices through dust and silence,

a mechanical rasp that shivers

the stillness like a forgotten lesson.

The pencil curls, wood peeling back

in spirals sharp as memory,

a sound both harsh and tender,

faint humming on a windowsill.

Empty desks hold their breath,

waiting, holding ghosts of chalk dust

and the scrape of learning,

a noise that calls out from a room

where voices once gathered and softened.