The rust that covered the chamber
was the first thing I noticed,
the chamber open as an empty tomb,
as someone who could just walk away,
a shadow at midday, hammer pulled back.
April, almost twenty-two years ago:
the last time the gun held a bullet you held
the gun like the door that it was. Some nights
before I got blackout drunk I would hide
the hollow-point bullets to the Colt .357
my father gave me for graduation,
its silver smile. I did not want the gun
so easy, so ready. The engraving
on both sides of your shotgun, so delicate
it could’ve been carved with the end
of a snapped guitar string: a duck,
wings beating against the water, trying
to takeoff. A pheasant in the grass
at full stride. Both animals forever
fleeing, like a song stuck on repeat
that keeps starting over again.