Obsession: Sestinas in the Twenty-First Century

Loaded

12 PATRICIA MONAGHAN Loaded They were always taught that all guns were loaded. It was a way, he said, to keep them safe. Don’t you notice, he said, how people get shot by pistols they think are unloaded? The gun on the living room shelf, the unhidden luger, the rack full of rifles: the children knew each one was death. Now children, he’d ask, his hand on a gun, is this loaded? Mute chorus of yes. Mute yearning to hide. That was their home. At school they were safe even when textbooks talked about guns and described how the buffalo hunters would shoot and buffalo crumple down dead, one shot enough to bring down the biggest. No child in that school had ever seen bison, gunned down or living, seen meat being loaded on travois by leather-clad scouts, safety bolts on their guns; no child had worn hides or rode on the plains. But in history hid critical truths that they sought about shooting and fear and escape. Learn and be safe, history whispered its promise to children like them, learn and be safe. But a loaded gun holds only one promise. A gun, any gun, threatens use of a gun no matter how they tried to hide in books, no matter how they loaded themselves down with schoolwork. A shot or two in the evening, then, children, he’d say, don’t think the world’s safe, then he’d tell how once he had saved someone’s life with that very gun over there on the wall and then children, he’d say, be prepared for the worst, never hide from attackers, they all deserve shooting, so all guns must always be loaded. Even dreams weren’t safe, for hiding in them were guns, aimed, ready to shoot. Even children know this: loading leads to unloading. ...