The news hit like a dry wind
rolling off the Panhandle—
               a crack in the earth widening,
another decree carved into the classroom walls
where children once traced constellations
               and asked why the sky was so wide.

I felt the old ache rise,
the one shaped like pews and punishment,
               like being told my silence was obedience,
my questions were sin.
Now they want to stitch scripture
into the desks, the tests,
               the daily recitations of children
who never asked for this inheritance.

Sadness comes first—
a low, blue hum in the bones,
               thinking of the kid who already feels
too small, too strange, too outside
and now must carry a book that has been used as a gate,
               a gavel, a weapon.

But anger follows fast, sharp as mesquite thorns—
because curriculum should not be a cage,
               and learning should not be a sermon,
and no state should decide
               which god belongs in a child’s hands.

I want to shout into the dust storm:
               Let them read the world,
                         not just one book.
Let them find their own language for wonder, for grief,
               for the sacredness of being alive.

Instead, the ruling stands,
and the classrooms brace themselves
for another season of forced devotion.

               And I stand here, fists tight,
                         heart heavy,
                              writing a poem that tastes like mourning
                                   and fire.

 

After Brittany Allen’s Commentary, The Bible is Now Required Reading for Texas Public School Students. (Literary Hub 06.30.26).

 

Olivia D’Zavala, a college English professor and recipient of the 2026 Poets on the Coast Fellowship, has publications in Lucky Jefferson, BloodClot!Horror Zine, Cape Cod Review, Harrow House Journal, and Amaranth Literary Journal, marking her growing presence in contemporary and international literary spaces.