slept with it under my left shoulder. Once, its cold weight carried me through the 
night hours
as my only 
anchor. 
I would dream of hands

at my throat, semen

burning my thigh, and awaken to the barrel and bullets humming their leaden 
lullaby. 
Did you know that midnight

still smells of jasmine

when fear takes root in the aorta, that the sound of a single 
cricket can carry you through one night as long as October? 
Listen, I've shot a .357 magnum, a shotgun. Both left a ringing

in my right ear as Blue Label cans fell to the clay below. 
I've seen a pygmy rattler

go limp with rat shot,

its elegant body made hollow from iron beads. 
For months, from quarter moon to quarter, the pistol remained statuesque, trigger 
aching to be pulled, its arc caressed 
by my reluctant finger. 
When the world was all thorns, when the sound of drunken

men laughing made my mandible clench, tighten, I owned a gun and it had the 
voice of a Siren.