Rifle Making

i am looking for the boys
who grew big in the barrels of muskets
 
one in particular
who held hot steel in his eyes
drug his fingers down
the neck of the gun and
traced grooves to
spin bullets as they passed
i'll be a rifle someday
he'd say
 
if his mother was there
he'd have been scolded for putting those hands
in his mouth
for holding his larynx out
in front of him
for being a silly young boy
pushing grooves in his throat
so bullets would spin
if ever they passed
he was never
fired,
 
the flint was better to him at least
 
he had to listen
to his neighbors scratching
their throats into rifles
 
to explosions and then
the quiet where other boys
had been, in their guns
 
he scolded himself
in a handful of voices
 
for the vacancies
and carved larynx
for many times the evolutions
of weapons next to him.

1 comment:

  1. Erik, most of your prose is so far above me that I can't even start to comprehend.

    Then, every once in a while, I catch hold of something you write, read it, and understand it. And I am left in awe.

    This, clearly, is one of those times.

    ReplyDelete