First Person Shooter

Living in the time of decline
is a game of inches, like
football: grinding effort,
slogging through.  Imagining with every play
the single piercing moment
of the certainty
of defeat or triumph, staving it off
a while.  But there’s a known deadline there
and none here.

Thick as the line in a thermometer
in a Massachusetts window
on January 13 comes a message:
sun’s going down, wind’s picking up.
It’ll get colder.

In the mornings
I have lately risen to this:
first person shooter vision,
blued barrel
facing away from me, the cylinder
open, see how my fingers
seat the rounds, steady thumb and forefinger
plucking them from the box.  Two or three
still to be loaded.  I shake off the image,
but then what? 

Asked for a pen
and got a revolver. A laurel wreath
replaced by a gin blossom
on a thin cheek. Grubs
under glass, fossilized oysters.
The forbidden and frightening sound
of one sure shot
at peace, but not on my watch
if I can help it, not in my house
if I have something to say about it.

Still, such moments in winter
have their place, and I surmise
that I am that place.  Sun goes down
and comes up, it gets colder
and warmer, wind picks up
and dies down, and there is a voice
out there, not only in here.