Listen & Be Heard

Gun Talk

by

Tony Robles

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

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