After days of murder, more bodies
than nights in a week, you would think
we’d say Enough. Instead,
more blood. Don’t think
it’s just the dealers, that side
of law not in your nature.
It’s expectant fathers on morning walks,
it’s businessmen minding their business,
selling denim on Sunday afternoons.
Yesterday, my student, who doesn’t believe
in gun control, said he wanted to write
a poem about parenting & the right
to bear arms, how slipping on one side
affects the other
(you guess
which way that goes).
& though you won’t find me w/steel
in the small of my back (@ least
not by my hand), I know the peace
a poem can bring. So I say, Yes,
write. & he goes back to his seat
nodding his head, the room filled
w/the voices of his classmates
comparing Dove, Simic, & Wright,
the push of my chair
back from my desk to stand & speak
like fingernails
on a chalk board, like a scream
when a gun fires.
from dying in the scarecrow’s armsFind it in the library
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