An old poem, by Sheri. We've been around awhile, oh yeah, still here.

Guns

I swore a long time ago

that I would never sleep

in a house with a gun,

so when I spent the night

at your parents house the

first night, I was rattled by

that gun case, the shotguns

hanging there like brooms

as if to really clean your clock,

as if to really be ready for use,

and I couldn't sleep in that room,

I couldn't stop staring at the barrel,

the trigger, was our sex a part of it?

Yours shining and new, your finger

on me ready to hear the explosion?

Sleep wouldn't come. Later, you

said, enough, and covered the case

with a blanket. It was like a box

of puppets then, hidden and silent,

hoisted up by invisible strings,

and the guns wouldn't kill the beer

headache or the lights I insisted upon,

wouldn't kill me or you or any

thought of love, they would only

need a target to be raised, to be

poised and steady, here is where

I lay still and straight, as if in glass,

as if we all were protected.