May 14 Gaza Border

Evil is incremental One bullet after another And after another And after another Until there’s a blister On my trigger finger Where there used to be a wet print Of a little kiss Transplanted to my little girl’s cheek Before I left for work This morning, She’s sound asleep in bed With the spring birds singing Through her window. All day I do The best I can To shoot low, To spare the gut, To leave the heart within its chest, I merely shred knee caps and groins With shrapnel From the cannon in my hand, To buckle those distant shapes Of brown people, To see them writhe in the dirt On their asses, Legs and arms pumping into the air Like half-squished spiders On top of a table, Hauled away in spoonfulls of wheelbarrows My God My God Please stop This prophecy Of slingshots And firebombing kites. I know most of my bullets Have slipped into the gaseous abyss With their own orders And less discipline Into a handshake of fate Until I reckon With the end of time I am doing this Me All day At work Shooting Across a field Over a fence erected by men Because this is heaven, and that is hell And they all want in, Millions of them, Wanting to kill me And my little girl Asleep in her bed. I’ve never heard or seen Of anything More irrelevant Than having a choice. Did I say that, or did they? We all follow our orders.