Loaded
Back
then he showed me
how
to assemble the farm
tool
I did not want
to
touch: a small gauge rifle.
My
hesitation
surprised
him: his mother
and
sister shot well,
their
loyalty to homegrown food
justice
enough for dealing death
to
fat groundhogs or
teenage
racoons. I could see
the
logic of knowing
what
every farm kid knew,
but
I didn’t like any of it,
not
aiming at a can
on
a bloodless fence post,
not
pulling the trigger.
Laurel Smith
lives in Vincennes, Indiana, and happily participates in projects to promote
literacy and the arts. Her poems have appeared in Natural Bridge, New
Millennium Writings, Tipton Poetry Journal, Flying Island, English
Journal, JAMA: Journal of the AMA; also in the following
anthologies: Mapping the Muse, And Know This Place, Visiting Frost.