You built a fire
by which to keep warm
and which you hoped
would keep demons away,

a fire you tended badly
and let burn mile after mile
of the earth, let the ash
poison the sea,

not to mention your role
in what it did to the air
and all the flesh and hair
that burned as well.

Now you have the nerve
to fall in love with a song
that insists you never built it,
and all I can think of

is how much you must love
the tale of Peter denying Jesus
and somehow being
forgiven for it.

Think about how many
of your youthful TV loves
opened with the sound
of a gun.

Think about how many
movies you used as a mold
opened and closed with
the sound of a weapon at play.

Think about how much
of how you used to play
needed the sound of a weapon
for the games to work right.

Think about how easily
random items could become
guns and swords in your
magically fatal hands.

Think about how happy
it made you to gun down
a playmate, relegating them
to play dead on the battlefield lawn.

Think about how they used to get up
after being dead and take their turn
to kill you back and how you went on
taking turns till the streetlights

came on and you were called away
from all the killing by higher powers
to eat something and watch a little more
killing before bedtime.

Think about how surprised you still are
that killing them now leaves
the dead on the ground.
Think about how real blood smells.

Shudder to think of them rising.
Thrill to the thought of how you grew up
into who you are: barely chagrinned, relieved
that none of them will get their turn.