Did you bring you pistol?
Do you want to go shoot?
So it goes…
A man becomes a boy going out to gun down cans
Or wound an old tree
The rhythmic rattle of brass on brass in a cardboard box
provides the cadence for the walk to the pasture where the battle would occur.
We make small talk, laugh as we load our guns…
We turn.
Take aim.
The report shatters the quiet of a summer’s day.
After subduing an old pine and reducing a plank to splinters
He bends to pick up the casings.
It wasn’t an odd thing.
He encouraged me to shoot more if I wanted…he had all he wanted.
Two more clips…I was done.
Though he was there…it wasn’t the same shooting alone.
He bends to pick up the casings…
Each one singing its bright eulogy as he drops them into the box.
He knew, I think.
The cancer was doing its work in a quiet corner of his left lung.
He knew.
I was unaware
In two weeks we would share a last Father’s day
But before the summer was done he would be gone.
On the day of his surgery, we made small talk and laughed as we denied our fears
Two weeks later the disease had subdued him, his still strong body reduced to damp clay.
I bend to pick up his hand as they disconnect the machines and
Struggle as the silence interrupts the noise of a summer’s day.
He knew, I think, that I was unaware, unprepared, undone.
In my dreams, he asks me if I brought my pistol…
We walk the walk together to the shuffle of the cartridge box.
But when he asks me if I want to keep on, I say yes,
For fear of the last casing being retrieved
Placed in a box
Closing the lid
Saying good-by
