Deconstruction of the Blues

Bullet

38 BULLET I was trundling after marvelous violence violence that splits things to the guts splits them open to the shadows alongside elongated shadows long pig panther antelope gorilla I was hunting violence with my toy rifle bolt-action that was like my ticket to the absolute real gun solid black lightning I didn’t shoot animals whom I loved but imaginary men and I was going to shoot my mother to keep my hand in spinning off the dark hall into the big yellow kitchen raising the barrel when such was the irony that I fell through to foreverness dropped in a drop She told me later I had slipped bunked my head on the refrigerator but that lacked proportion too slight a cause to put me in a place so steep and wide 39 I was nowhere in it Until I suspected a voice felt rather than heard it and tried to edge away sly small fish “R-i-ichard . . . Richard” My mother’s meadow face anxiously pixelled in Me again who had been so spacious and gone Me again splitting into things How hopelessly angry she made me The world had opened at the root to vast humming peace Why couldn’t she leave it alone? hung in a peace that had always been stretched quietly on the linoleum in front of the Frigidaire And how had it happened? How could I get back? It seemed that my gun had shot backwards blown me open to that hunger arc of the bullet dumdumming inside ...