Science Class

He reads the rules out loud
(though everyone has them on the handout)
enunciating
every syllable so clearly
that students are transfixed
as rabbits caught in headlights.
They can stop thinking now,
since it’s obvious no time will be
allocated in this lesson plan
with its carefully stated objective in ALL CAPS
to discuss whether the animals
they dreamed of researching—
manticore, minotaur, megalodon—
are extinct or imaginary.