Marlo Starr

Ghost & Gun

The gun has a grammar.
It makes the shape of
a question in my hands.
I do not feel powerful
but want to understand
the hard excesses of belief.
On the firing range
every pop triggers
a muscled blink. Here,
we learn, eyes must close
when ears can’t. Meanwhile
the men are loud above
the blowback and sulfur
stink. A riddle that chimes
with country: darkened sparklers
on a sun-sweated lawn,
a bombed sky quiet with smoke.
Meanwhile, we rehearse
active shooter drills.
Under our desks, a classmate
back from Afghanistan, says
interrogation
for shorthand. The university
will award him best poem
for his camo-lyric.
The same week, they host a vigil
            for Boulder’s ten, Atlanta’s eight.
Here there is a river called
Gunpowder. Here there is
a field called Soldier’s Delight.
Here I am listening
to 3D printers manifest
an age-old design.
How the West Was Won—
did rhyme precede fact
in the Winchester’s time?
Meanwhile the heart
with its separate chambers
pumps its message between walls.
The gun has a grammar: it makes
the future conditional. Meanwhile
I fold my paper target small and squat
among brass shells at sunset.
I can’t hear my own piss in the grass.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Marlo Starr holds an MFA from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins and a Ph.D. in English from Emory University. Her poetry and prose have appeared in The Threepenny Review, I-70 Review, Berfrois, Queen Mob's Teahouse and elsewhere.