The poet makes his gun out of any old thing:

sticks of words,  bird song, the swish of trees,

the pitter patter of the growing city around him,

 

The poet’s gun is never just a gun.

His poems are never just words.

 

Today, the poet’s gun is a rose—

thorns of wounding,

warnings to admire its scent and beauty

from a respectful distance.

 

He fired it in the air knowing

that a gun that is a gun

is a little brook of death,

but since his gun was a rose,

it was dangerous and beautiful.

 

His verse exploded

blooming petals

shedding its crimson

like dew on the water.

 

It felt like rain.

It felt like pulsing veins.

It felt like life being knocked over.

It felt like love bursting through.

 

The gun was a rose

and the gun was not death.

Out of anything he made it.

Tomorrow, it would be water.