My Mother Contemplating Her Gun

One boyfriend said to keep the bullets locked in a different room. Another urged clean it or it could explode. Larry thought I should keep it loaded under my bed, you never know. I bought it when I didn't feel safe. The barrel is oily, reflective, the steel pure, pulled from a hole in West Virginia. It could have been cast into anything, nails along the carpenter's lip, the ladder to balance the train. Look at this, one bullet, how almost nothing it is— saltpeter sulphur lead Hell burns sulphur, a smell like this. safety & hammer, barrel & grip I don't know what I believe. I remember the woods behind my father's house horses beside the quarry stolen cars lost in the deepest wells, the water below an ink waiting to fill me. Outside a towel hangs from a cold line a sheet of iron in the sky roses painted on it, blue roses. Tomorrow it will still be there.