I can’t attest to provenance per se`,
Except to clearly note where it was cast,
As well as where it’s been for most its life.
The pistol lacks the power to impress –
A Browning heritage, its shrouded past
Calls it a soldier’s sidearm, never strapped
Or bold enough to take a forward post.

I claimed it, where it hid, in an apothecary
Case, beneath a mystic mixture store
Of potions, salves, and tinctures
Dr. Mathewson had kept secure, away.
I learned it came from Herstal, Belgium:
Firepower, pure and simple, for imagination
Fascinated with where I hope it’s been.

It should have made the auction slate,
But I’d arranged to ‘find’ it far too late
To land upon the auction catalog.
Like that! the gavel cracked the final egg.
Nine-tenths of law gave custody
Not to me, but to my wary Dad. The gun
And I remained estranged until he passed.

Somehow, my gunsmith uncle knew to look
And pass the weapon on along to me.
“Your father knew you coveted” he said.
Thus, I have had it now, since he is dead,
A piece like this cut down an Archduke once.
The War to End All Wars runs through its veins
Like blood to blood at last demanded peace.

I keep the gun well-oiled and prepared,
Though I have no designs on how or where
Some chance will say it must make peace with fate
And live up to its full design. I know
A weapon not discharged is not the same
As debts unpaid. What ‘may’ or ‘might’ knows aught
Of chasms splitting ‘should’ from every ‘could’.

“We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together” TS Eliot

There by the door I saw
it
and I’ve never so quickly told
myself away from
the shadow
we’ve all seen just
almost. And maybe like
when I was a kid and my dad watched
upper half of his great aunt walk
across the foyer of our family home
that was also his family home before
I should have yelled. And
called everyone in to watch. It
seems there’s a chance
everyone’s already talked about it
but it doesn’t matter.
Because, there in the hallway
I stood, asking
me to go again behind the sun.

The prospect of a potential summer storm
Is concerning as most windows in the house are
Open or cracked, most of the time. The dashed and
Dotted lines that sang before in parallel perfection
Guiding me while the hatches of our home received
The proper battening have, in these short months,
Embossed into my arm.

(I’d say she were my compass, but that might dupe
anyone who’d think we had direction) (and
I’d say splayed but I’m not sure it’s better than
Anything else) on our family room couch, on pillows
That have never matched, but have somehow always
Been here.

There wasn’t always such a detailed map. In darker times
Where violent winds would nudge me from my duty; Krishna
Would have lost his SHIT. What is a man without it?
I would, first, have to find that man and ask what I
Misplaced. And that requires finding. Is it worth the search
Knowing what you’ll find is less perception?

It’s also drier now; there’s nothing to splash or jostle that
Would leave a stain or mark. I’ve used the lot provided,
And be a fool to ask for seconds. Recently the path is marred
By wrinkles which mimic some path, but are ultimately leadless.
Those horses have been held a little past a year now. With some
Luck, they’ll not be put to pasture, or moreover may it’s
Rotten ammunition mimic the creases in my face.

Nonetheless, she has resisted the temptation that is
Anything else. I don’t get, anymore, when I became the
Ox upon the cart. OK. I have to make my way through
The hall to the bathroom (as the window, like her, is most
Expected to collapse). Her feet are peaking underneath a
Throw. “I’ve only got the dining and the kids’ playroom to go.”
She barely responds because, as I know, little ones don’t come
With coconuts and fronds.

Her counterpart cries, suddenly, jump-scared, and.
I softly let her know that “we’re right here” when “you’re
Right there.” I softly sing a verse of something manic
And disperse, as my own window needs closing. I cannot disengage
As much as lighting is the sky, you are my it. I’ll try to keep
This ending brie—no—ok…something something COCK-pit.
(She’s asleep…)

A glance, averted, catches light,
Be-shrouded by a subtle cuff.
Surveillance draws attention
To a missing stylish touch:
The eye can’t disregard – a pocket
Missing from the formal frame.
Net negative is not the space.
Its capability remains in place.
Discrepancy grabs focus and the gaze.

A fountain pen clings awkwardly
To collared shirts deprived of class
And status, hanging on for dear life
To a whisper of a memory,
Where absent fathers passed along
A nib of wisdom. “Keep a pen,
Reliable and crisp; empowered, clean,
And finely tuned by craftsmanship.
No moment in your life is less than worthy
Of commemoration.”

But neither He nor Time presided
Over misty Futures. Keeping wells as full
Of mourning and of evening
As human aspiration might allow.
So, quietly, and sometimes oddly too,
He clipped anachronism to a thread
That held the best of him around his neck,
To channel what was passed, and what might
Be the best of all to come.
We drink only a drop of what we can.
Such little things mean more, and last, and last.

The room
is the slate grey of early morning and
both you and your brother have found
yourselves in our bed.
Our legs and arms, a quilt, or
at least the makings of one
I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about when we finish it.
You notice I’m awake and whisper in my ear that you’re not sure you like
what’s happening outside.
The recent storms have taken some trees and you suggest that my cutting them
down is quitting on them.
“What if they come back?
What if they don’t fall?
Not everything that’s crooked is wrong?”
I take a big wakeful breath of your hair
Before I squeeze you tight.

To whatever means to whatever ends, to this world we owe,
What I know, of knowing anything, is that
this is home.