I’m trying to unpin the grenade that is your body
so I can toss you away from me, but you’re burning like a bridge
and there’s no fire escape between your thighs.
We made a list of thirty-four excuses for why our fathers left us
to go to Tucson, Arizona and play Russian Roulette
with other men who only cared about picking their teeth
clean with bullets.
When I ask you how come a gun has to be cocked before it gets fired,
you tell me my heart is a battleground
and there’s no one left to pay the taxes
that will fund the war that will eventually cut off the blood flow.
Maybe your father is somewhere in a hotel room
learning how to hold a pistol likethe woman he left behind;
maybe mine is trying to think of poetic ways
to call me up and apologize
for all the times he held the gun to his own temple
instead of mine.