July 6th, 1997



July 6th, 1997

The things we could do
with a certain lovely others
are weapons we keep loaded
or at least near the ammo box
in a drawer behind the socks.
                                                                Fidelity
                                                                Mark Halliday

I was telling him I’ve never
fired a gun because bb’s don’t
count.  I have held them, always

unloaded, up to my shoulder
and sent my eye down the barrel
like it’s the millionth

bit of light I’ve ever seen and I’m taking it
for granted and I bet it’s because there’s nothing
in the chamber that either I

or he or she didn’t, believing it
was just for checking
the fit, to make an educated

investment we confess, put there
ourselves.  There was this once I held a man’s
pistol and it was

the heaviest thing I’d ever tried
to lift, as heavy as that book
I’d been given that was once

in Dachau.  I opened it like it was
the baptismal gown I saved
from the fire that finally

took our house down
to the ground, as if any falsity 
would lead it to fall

the soot and ash.  Like everything
at my feet, I was in over my head: the bed
was melted through, the scorch on the tin

ceiling, there was a crack in the plaster
Jesus, busted the way of windows and axes
and firemen.  And all I remember is

the shape of his face, with the streak
of grease (maybe a fire-
man’s thumb?) how it matched

the one on the stack of magazines
that hadn’t been touched, and Jesus
had saved just by raising up his

blessing.  Maybe that was heavier
than the dress.  Maybe I want it
to be heavier than that, and the gun

too, that rack of advertisements we
stare: sit still please your man stories  But it’s not.
I know it’s not.  He taught me, and his hands

felt absolutely true coming
around mine from behind, how to
raise it up and hold it still,

how to look all the way down
the narrow path of it, to listen
to the whistle, the wind slides through, hear?

all the teethy branches are slippery
morning grasses, to make all the calls
I needed to make: to either then

put it down or pull it through
but if you’ve raised it up darling
it’s yours and you either fire 

or it will fire on you what, tell me
can you tell me? what are you going
to do?

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