26

What is left of the poet,
the relation, light

ly across the eye, of words--

a gut cocked and a left eye rimmed,
swollen with powder burns.

Each poem with the click of an empty chamber.

Look down the barrel.
Rings of chrome into gray,
black husk.

That this round may hide

[or you
may fold / in your fistfuls of brain]

a kernel.