Firing My Father’s Mossberg
1.
At the shooting range,
my elbow raised, safety
unlocked, squeezing the trigger
I block out surrounding shots, whisper breathe
as if to my father,
a rebuttal to my sister’s
You’re scared of these things…
Scarlet leaves of sumac ambush
the periphery of an otherwise cleared path
over which the bullet could be fired.
2.
It was a loaded lie: the buck
hanging from our backyard tree
just sleeping in a frozen body,
its wide open eye, a mirror,
in which my hair split
and tied high into two pigtails
brushed the fur
collar of my short down jacket,
curled into blond parenthesis
around my face.
3.
Father kept his Mossberg’s
little brother, BB, hidden
behind sample prescription drugs
crammed and forgotten
in the bedroom oak cabinet.
He kept it to protect us
from the Hell’s Angels
who revved their motorcycles,
swarmed like bees
onto a rotting pear,
circling the parking lot
of the restaurant next door.
Windows rattled, my bedroom
stained glass hexagons
of roses fell,
broke on the floor.
4.
Father liked to point out
the tiny hole in the BB’s slide—
in case it was ever stolen.
It had the capability, he said, to shoot
the shooter with the spent casing.
It had sense of humor, he said,
for a gun.
5.
Aluminum pie pans spin wildly
from branches of our cherry tree.
Crows flap their wings
shitting in terror.
We couldn’t eat the cherries fast enough.
They softened on a plate,
exposed rancid gaping wounds,
black oozing bruises our tongues
learned quickly to avoid.
6.
Each time the target sheets
shudder then sway
loosely on the pulleys.
Distant pinpricks of December light
move and stay—
scattered bits of black feather
and sumac berries in winter…
And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul
Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple
…not exactly angels or simple
or the buck reawakened.
