BOLT ACTION: A LESSON IN DIFFICULT SUBJECTS

by Maggie Glover

 

 

The first time I shot your rifle,	its recoil marked my chest—
not in watercolors	as your thumbprints on my waist—
but in broken-vessel black,	purple angering the wound-edges
while you taught me	to decrease the impact,
pushing the butt into my shoulder.	A friend once wrote:
a gun gives everyone potential	(whether shooter or shot at,
you might—)	and I thought of grasp
and its limits.  Literally,	we can only hold onto so much
for so long.	Tonight I wait beside you,
wakeful with amphetamine,	counting the days it’s been
as though so much time spent	skin to skin
could equal less consequence	as our bodies are also weaponry,
loaded and quivering.  Of course	I want to wake you, want you
to settle my jiggish bones	into place:
solved, secured, complete.	But if you understand
these mathematics,	the probability of our aching,
how do you sleep?

 

          

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