Thoughts and Prayers

 

Sometimes I think about my gun — a Savage

.250, fitted out with a scope

last calibrated long ago. I have

it in my sister’s basement, and I hope

it’s safe — it was my dad’s.

                                             My mother made

antelope tacos, elk lasagna, venison

chops by the freezerful. I paid

due heed — so that’s what guns are for.

                                                               And when

I hear those tired old thoughts and prayers, they sound

like the make-believe rat-a-tat my friends

and I hollered down the barrel of our

fingers — what fun to play at death.

                                                          The men

were laughing when they looked up from their kill,

watched me hoist the gun, take aim at the green,

steaming pile of pronghorn guts, slowly will

the bang and shock. I might have been thirteen.

 

 

© Michael Fleming

Brattleboro, Vermont

March 2018

 

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