Armed and Ready

You called to tell me something

about whiskey, those kinds of lessons

gleaned from fermentation

in the hot sun before a cold winter

spent in isolation:

chopped up, put in a wheelbarrow.

I distracted you for a moment

with those certain mutual pleasures

and you slipped your secret out:

the means to kill and kill again

with the diminishing remorse

of proper lubrication.

Others’ mistakes weigh heavily

in higher gravity, in sordid deserts

where terror births

the impetus of death

from those broadside explosions,

the Bukhara buck caught in fireworks

bounding with its own,

charging into something obscene

with the silhouette of fearlessness

ensconced in such a climate.

There is no longer loss than that

first shot, the bus of bodies pouring.