Back home a young black transgender
man was shot by a security guard
for allegedly stealing a bag
of candy
3000 miles away from
home and somehow I hear
the gunfire, the single shot
that killed that young transgender
man
The bag of candy
hits the ground
Back home, a city of misshapen
balloons going off but
muted for the TV screen
and the mangled tongues of
politicians
And here, 3000 miles away
in the warehouse where I work,
they are talking guns
And I remembered my father owning
a gun, a 357 magnum
single action
One of those cowboy looking
guns that you had to cock
back before firing
I remember firing that gun
at the gun range
and how it kicked back, like an
angry mule
an older Filipino man
looked at my father’s gun
and said: Three Pibe Seben
I hear it in the warehouse
I hear its deafening sound
As I try not to go deaf
in a warehouse
in a city
in a country
in a world
with guns