Today's poem is by Denise Duhamel & Julie Marie Wade

Gun Ghazal
       

I am a fan of water pistols but an enemy of guns;
pull out those Super Soakers and put away those big guns.

My boyfriend tried to teach me how to shoot a target:
goggles on, ears plugged, arms extended, I had just begun

my period, and all I could think of was blood, the good kind,
my body busy and alive—slick with its own potential. I let the gun

go slack in my hand. "Is this a deal-breaker?" he asked. It was.
The same boyfriend used to kiss his biceps and call them "guns."

A Vietnam War protester placed a carnation in a rifle's barrel.
Once, years before, Mae West ribbed a police officer: "Is that a gun

in your pocket...?" My father loved Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke;
when my parents fought, my mother called me their "smoking gun."

My mother was afraid of her own temper. No pistols for her—
instead, scrubbing floors and pounding meatloaves, then gunning

the gas and leaning on the horn. I'm afraid of my temper too.
I'm afraid of leading with anger, like feudal lords and shoguns,

so certain they were right. I'd rather punch my pillow than
reach for a weapon. As Chekhov warned, when there's a gun

in your story, someone has to pull the trigger. That's why
we love or fear them. Shooting is the only purpose of a gun.

Copyright © 2025 Denise Duhamel & Julie Marie Wade All rights reserved
from The Latest: 20 Ghazals for 2020
Small Harbor Publishing
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission