That the greasy pop-pop
of a semiautomatic wrecks
the air before I can get off
the couch, before my wife yanks
our baby daughter
from the new fallen flesh
of pomegranate and runs
inside before their car horrors
past our fence is true.
That this winter this town
has more bullets than rain
gutters in truth but is not true. But the bullets
are true. Candles, rosaries, the roses
that shrine the street corner
are true beyond the next day stare
of faces watching me walk
behind a stroller. What’s true
is the wound
channel, that human tissue jumps
from a bullet like water
from a diver. One
boy bled out where he fell.
The other on a table
at a university hospital. Drawn
blinds are true, checked locks. Smiles
have too much teeth to be true.
What’s vital is the crush
mechanism, the permanent hole
a bullet makes in that moment
I’m watching
my wife and child each time
they fail to reach
the door. Noises at night grow
skin, grow fur, spring fangs
that scratch and score casement
glass and hinge
between what’s true. And what isn’t?
That I wrote down the names
of the dead, though it should be.
What’s real are the costs
of moving, of staying, the recoil
from a too early doorbell,
the ten to fifteen seconds left
to a body when the heart’s
instantly destroyed. What’s left
is our fence five feet from
the street, the house thirty feet
from the fence, the front wall
four inches of California
bungalow and then her crib.
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