Have you ever held a gun before?
I once fired a revolver, point-blank at Mark Stoneley,
loaded with a roll of paper caps. He cried,
and told his mum, who told my mum. So, No, not really.
We drove towards Mexico, through sand dunes
littered with shoes, a rag doll snagged on a barbed wire fence.
He said, It’s not a toy, and then made me put it together
like a puzzle. Barrel, slide, frame, and the jet-black magazine.
Heavy as the dark in a folding star. Along a dirt track
lined by cholla and scrub, the road signs
peppered with lead, I snapped in the rounds. Here. We stopped
by a runnel and a pockmarked fridge, where he pinned up
a target, and showed me how to aim. Squeeze off the noise,
he said, pumping out shot. The desert took the sound
and buried it. Your turn. I stood as instructed,
bucking on a kick when the gun went BANG, trying to be tough
when the clip was spent. Or so I thought. He took back the Glock
and tutted, holding up a round still left. They’re the ones
that kill. Without a doubt, the fridge was dead. Holes
in the front door, holes through the rear, bleeding light.
I want to add a detail here, like circling birds, or a dust devil swirl.
But, no. Just a fridge. And a target flayed with a heart
blown out.