A gun is an instrument of articulation: Glory be
the backyard travesty, orange grass and ochre leaves. My gun
is not my gun, but it is
a kind of being: my word, one may care
to carry it. The sky falls
with my paper lantern and my hallelujah pain—why delay
violence that must rage and exclaim
and grow old? Deny the trigger
or be the trigger: hurry before the war ends. Hurry
before I love again. There must be an image
to console the reader during her reading season,
which is a grief of too much language. When
I first wrote this poem, I was more than one word:
And now? It is midnight. I have guns, but no target.
