There is a proximity between the gun

And a virgin’s white wedding dress.

She stood staring down the barrel

The muffled voice behind the stocking

Forcing demands while her heart lay frozen

Her mind occupied with the cold bullets

That sat quietly in the twisted chamber

Defining her consciousness through anger,

Forcing her awareness upon them with the promise

Of imminent release: With an effort she could hear

The gun smile and smell the expectation of shed blood.

He lay on the floor naked, confused, watching the gun

As it abutted the sweating forehead of his lover, her hazel eyes,

Wet with unwanted prophecies, plead silently for an action

He was too terrified to give. He accepted the taunts, the boots

The chilling belief that an ending was coming

With the act of a finger pulling hard upon the trigger.

In the quietness of probability, his mind recalled

The voice of his father begging him for forgiveness.

Together and apart, they slept differently since the gun’s visit.

He lay tossing on the bed, his shame like warm urine,

Soaking the tangled sheets, while his rebellious mind

Forced replay after replay of his inaction, his bare bum

Quivering in the air as his lover’s forehead became indented

With the kiss of the gun’s barrel. She hardly slept at all,

Huddled as she was, in the dark recesses of the wardrobe

While she waited for a hard knock upon the door and the re-entry

Of the gun to finish the task it left uncompleted last visit.

It came not from the bullet

But from the gun

Not in the form of death

But in separation.

The two could not share the memory -

While her forehead throbbed with that hated kiss

And her mind sought cool shade and gentle thoughts,

His fists clenched and his voice boiled over

In reaction to his nightly remembered weakness.