Decoy Deployed

The shot rings out

as desired.

If they can't spare one

they can't have any.

"Armorer!" his intended customer

three stories below his abode

yells from the ground after firing into the air.

Crouched in a corner of the room

he turns his head toward a mirror

that's aimed at a second one

which delivers the image

of a man standing

in the designated parking spot.

Long ago he outlined it in orange paint

for the use of his patrons.

"Two boxes of of .243 here.

Forty rounds.

I'm seeking .223

or 9," his voice carries

plaintively through the window.

"You know that ran dry months ago,"

he replies as politely as an ammo dealer can.

"How about some .22?"

He envisions this man in tattered clothing

with a rabbit skewed on a poorly whittled spit

above his campfire later on that evening

a tiny hole in the flat skull 

courtesy of his offer.

"It's a deal in your favor."

"It'll feed you for the night."

The vagabond presents no argument

approaches the building

waits for the brass man to lower his basket

by a rope that he'd never expected to use this way

and deposits his half of the trade.

The recipient counts the cartridges

checking primers and projectiles

then scoops a handful of .22 rimfire rounds

from one of a dozen buckets

wraps them in a rag that was once a shirt

and lowers them to the hungry man

awaiting the basket's return.

This is how it's been for longer

than he's marked on his improvised calendar.

Some of them bring canned food

bottled water, or chocolate that's gone pale

but the payment for these is less.

An armed survivor can use his wares

to obtain any other item if he's got a gut

strong enough to do what many

thought they never could

prior to the collapse.

It pays to get comfortable 

with violence.

No one's tried to overtake him.

The only obvious method

would destroy the stockpile they seek.

Fire and gunpowder don't play well together;

or too well, perhaps, depending on perspective.

He used to hate the added elevation

of his brick-and-mortar residence 

on laundry, shopping, and garbage days

but in these un-Presidented times 

it's served him well.

Even patriots and prostitutes

know better

than to play cards

with a man named after a city.

Fiddling through his Winchester shells

he hears another holler

but sees no figure standing

in the specified space.

"Hoarder," his guest implores.

"Where are you?"

He contemplates the question

unsure of true response.

"I've got a box of books,"

declares his unknwon company.

"Which of them do you want?"

Collections of fiction and facts

were burned in the streets

during the collapse.

Only poetry remained.

They deemed it inconsequential.

"How many? What titles?"

He can't get the words out fast enough

to convey his excitement.

"Take a look," his salesman says

from the lot below his window.

He rises from his corner

and tilts his head over the sill

to read the covers

he's been previously denied.

There's a flash in the woodline

that he'll never see.

He was partly right:

It wasn't only fire.

The shot rings out

as desired.

If they can't spare one

they can't have any.

Cyborg

Computers

too 

are hindered

by memory

consumption.

A Lesson in Kinetics

While bushwhacking this morning

my mentor took a tumble

after gaining much momentum

down grade too steep for his knees.

I watched him land his dive

tossing his cane to the side

as he plowed into the dirt.

Starting but soon stopping 

a woodland jog

I helped him 

in the kindest way

by showing the teacher

what the pupil has learned:

I let him rise

on his own

and brush the leaves

from his beard.

Trigger Discipline

Our father called
to ask the inevitable.
I knew it’d come;
didn’t hasten its arrival.

“I want you to teach him
to shoot.”

My upbringing
two decades sooner
had a healthy dose of firearms.
It yielded a lasting respect
and a reverent appreciation

but I’d never force it on the kid.

The old man told me
the boy’s been asking to shoot
a .22 or two with me.
Maybe it's time.

He's won two spelling bees
through memorization.
We can worth with that.

The four basic rules [:
1. Treat all guns
as if they're always loaded.
2. Never aim the muzzle
at anything you are not
willing to destroy.
3. Keep your finger off the trigger
until your sights are on target.
4. Be sure of your target
and what is beyond.]
will be ingrained
in his growing brain
before he touches
the steel.

We'll do it right
or not at all.

That's how brothers are.
You'll see.


Currently reading:
"South of Heaven" by Jim Thompson.

Cetacean Stranding

A night of
venting
through towers
leads to
feared cliche:

"It'll come
together as
it should,"
she states
from a state
away.

He wonders
if that's
how
the world
still works
or if
it
ever did.

He looks
into a mirror
lies
and says
he still wants
kids.

Unmasked

A friendly deli Hindu
drops the plastic fork
for my owed shot
of potato salad
on his contaminated counter
missing my paper bag--
his intended
and sanitized target.

He reaches back instantly
to replace it
with another whale-killer
like his liquor license
is on the line.

"Don't worry about it, brother,"
I exalt him through
uncaffeinated teeth.
"We've all got
to die sometime."

He laughs in a tone
that doubts me
and spills my change
into a hand.


Currently reading:
"No Country for Old Men" by Cormac McCarthy.

The Garden Gun

Henry Repeating Arms
an American standard
unrelated to plumbing fixtures
released it this year:
A lever-action carbine
chambered for .22 shells
with a smoothbore barrel
so the pellets hold tight.

It's a concept with a niche:
Pest control firepower
with less collateral damage
to keep handy on a farm
or out back in the grove
for ridding the land of vermin.

Loaded with a lethal dose
of No. 12 BBs
called snakeshot or ratshot
dependent upon what's most hated
this handy piece of hardware
will dispatch local varmints
without destroying structures.

They've stained the stock
a shade of black
to distinguish it from rifles
but the theory has a flaw:

Anything you aim to kill
will only send a friend.


Currently reading:
"The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon" by Stephen King.

All I Know of Infectious Disease I've Learned From Watching Doc Holliday Die

With more pinned on him
than Judas
aside from tuberculosis
the dentist-turned-gambler
and part-time pistolero

saved or avenged
a few of his friends
through a different sort
of social distancing
with foemen.

When asked if conscience
weighed on his head
he admitted to coughing it up
with his lungs.

No stranger to new normals
he rode again
never noosed by backwoods bedfellows

nixed instead by the consumption
contracted from his mother
in a Georgian childhood
that's mostly disremembered.

Denied a lost shot of whiskey
"This is funny,"
he told a nurse
about dying in bare feet
without holes from bullets.

Heroes don't declare themselves
like politicos in press briefings.
History, Hollywood
and subtle parentheticals
establish whom to hail

but who doesn't like
some afternoon violence?
Who needs a break
from sanitized life?


Currently reading:
"Fighting Handguns" by Jeff Cooper.

Defanged Olympians

My old man'll turn
69 tomorrow
but I can't go see him
to celebrate.
I'm sick
o'discussing the Cause.

The world hides in a chrysalis
thin and gold-rimmed
like Bible paper
hoping to emerge;
Daniel from the lions' den.

If only we were in church
32 years ago.
He'd hand me his pack
of Luden's Throat Drops
(though none of us're ill)
to pass the time

like he got me through sermons
I couldn't understand
in pews I couldn't see over

happy to have
Wild Cherry
or Honey Lemon
unwrapped from wax paper
after an off-key song

but here we are
where no one's singing.

Today I'd settle
for Honey Licorice
or even the devil's candy
Butter Rum Life Savers
from a gray-haired man
who repeats himself--
a hero undeclared

though the sermon
remains the same:

Life's too short
to waste.
Memento mori.
That conversation
like any pair of hands
gets bloody.


Currently reading:
"Desperation" by Stephen King.

The Alarmist

The best way
to kill
something
that's ever meant
anything
to you:

Repeat it
until it
means nothing.


Currently reading:
"Fence:  Spring-Summer 2018".

Cargo Woes

There's a tractor-trailer
canted at sixty degrees
over a ditch
at the otherwise quiet
highway rest stop
I'm passing.
An oversize tow truck
is rigged to the front bumper.
Its companion is smaller
with a crane hooked
to the side of the vehicle in distress.

Despite the newsworthy spectacle
only one man is watching
this maneuver at 6:33 AM
clearly not a fellow driver.

Two dozen rigs are parked in the lot
in varying states of rest
but none of their operators
are gawking at the scene.
They've seen it before
or it's happened to them
or they grant their brother
the respect of communal privacy
or they're mingling with lot lizards
or they're too damn tired
from being on the road
to care.

I reach my destination
three minutes before
the projected time
of my GPS
and finish my last swig
of coffee.


Currently reading:
"Rattle:  Spring 2020".

Contenders

I'm wrapped up today
like a woebegone pugilist
with a splint on my wrist
from a doc-in-the-box
to help heal a sprain
or a strain or neither
that isn't carpal tunnel.

There's a ripped envelope
to my right with its contents
spewed across the kitchen table:
A xeroxed sheet of science notes
"for the kids"
from chapters 13 and 14
with outdated info on water purification
printed in purple ink;
A wheatback penny from 1939;
A Baptist tract with scripture
intended to save my soul;
And an invoice with stamps
labeled diagrams
and capitalized ballpoint pen
that details the free labor
of cleaning and oiling
the enclosed rifle spring
from before the Civil War.
At the bottom of the page
he's squeezed a website address
and scrawled his humble boast
of providing mail order since 1965.

I sniff the dark and greasy palm
of my hardened clinic bandage
and remember it's still me.

In eight minutes I'll cover
my forearm with a garbage bag
and take an overdue shower
but if I could do anything right now
sans words or repercussions
I'd hug a stranger from Pennsylvania
who's somehow made it to eighty.


Currently reading:
"Poetry:  July/August 2019".

Advice From a Time Capsule

There are
six words to say
in sincere declaration
during parking lot transactions
of used furniture
and crumpled money
between strangers
encountered on the Internet:

Thanks for not killing me
faster.


Currently reading:
"Under the Volcano" by Malcom Lowry.

Hands Down the Champion

As inquisitive as I was
while a child
of God
with many incipient
queries still forming
I never paused
to ponder
whether water
in all streams
falls at the same rate
or if factors may play
like gravity, temperature
slope, density
or the street value
of a kidney
made aware
that two of me
would kill each other
simian
disremembered
panhandlers arguing
for intersection real estate.


Currently reading:
"Rattle:  Winter 2019".

A Wildlife Vendetta

I made the mistake of telling a nine-year-old about a lost dog I'd been seeing in the shoulder of the interstate every morning before dawn for two weeks. Calls to canine catchers and the highway patrol led nowhere. The men were tired of hearing it on coffee break. I tossed a flashlight on my passenger seat and promised myself to stop the next time that I saw it. I did, and it ran; first across the darkened lanes, then into a ditch. My hazard lights blinked desperately while I hid my face from high-beams and returned to my truck.

Days went by without a sighting. It had been moving east. Maybe it was finally farther than my exit. A reprieve from the guilt of failure to save a stray would be godsent. None of this was to be, however. Shortly before six I saw remnants of an explosion of fur and flesh next to the white line where I'd last seen it alive. I lit a cigarette and drifted onto the rumble strip, drifted into work.

For days it decomposed until only dry bones, then dust, remained. Now it's bare asphalt. The boy's inquired twice since then if I've seen that dog again. I've answered in the negative. What I saw was not a dog. He's got plenty of time to fall in love with those who don't want to be rescued. There are years before he's got to weep for roadkill. I won't hasten its arrival.

I buttered a drawer that was squeaking and it worked. I sent a handwritten letter with no carbon copy or electronic trail to a cousin I've never met. I swallowed a few warm mouthfuls in the shower. A rabbit suffers in silence and when it dies they're all surprised. The Russian alphabet lacks the letter N. Every time it gets easier, but I wish he'd stop asking.



Currently reading:
"The Last Mastodon" by Christina Olson.