When you cried of loss did you whimper

            ghost names to the mess of sheets on your floor

While crafting your new art did you

            use the colors of your own eyes, hair, skin

Here’s your gun Alan

You know as well as any that

you’ve never seen a gun before

one’s been put to your head

Through the barrel screaming to the dead the angel

shatters the bullet and what should have been your last breath

Is a shutter that breaks your spine

            and then your heart

Paralyzed and mindless you drift across America

seeing the same parks, streets, lots, drugs,

            stores, pits, gamblers, losers, pin-ups,

            sneakers in the store windows, Christmas displays,

            Vaccinations for the virus of obese America,

            dollar stores, pawn shops, economic highs,

            and the derailing lows of mad houses

that put the gun back into your hand

and, Alan, you saw your reflection on that handle

Did you cry for loss or for gain

or do you even remember

where it is in America you left yourself

Street broken penniless full of Gin and Walt

high up in your life and spirit

breathing to the trees and starving bird nests

on Pennsylvania avenue committing the only unforgivable sin

asking for a bread crumb

   or an eternal silver dream

Patrick Conners Jr