top of page
Michael H. Levin: Poems and Prose
GUN SIGHTS
(AR -15)
The recoils of this barrel
are not poems, though
their rhythms mimic verse.
Are not music though
their sharp staccatos cross-link
like the parts of scores,
a bass line locked in
conversation with
repeating chords.
Are not the ballets that
we paste upon our lives.
The smoky coda marks
another art: the smack
of rounds like cleavers, parting flesh,
forms sprawled or hunkered down
in panic by their desks
the splintered weekly scenes
we know too well by heart
at which we sigh
then proffer beige compassion;
soon depart.
Version first published in The American War Against Herself: An Anthology, Moonstone Press, 31 May 2021
bottom of page