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Bang
Jon Wesick
Seven-year-old Natalie held the pistol in her tiny hands.
She lifted the barrel to her lips
and gently blew smoke from the 44 magnum’s mouth.
Her baby sitter’s corpse lay on the floor.
Beige carpet soaked pooling blood.
Memories of high school proms,
hopes for college and career
lingered like fragile butterflies
circling the gray flecks of brain splattered on the wall.
One by one
wings stilled
thoughts and dreams dropped
never to rise again.
In an instant the promise of a young woman’s life
had been transformed into rotting meat.
Sylvia was livid, when she returned.
Her arm tensed with anger.
Yet, she fought back the urge
to slap the smirk from Natalie’s face.
Violence never solves anything.
Sylvia measured her words
careful not to harm her daughter’s spirit.
“Natalie, mommy’s very upset with you.
You know how hard baby sitters are to find.
Now say you’re sorry,
or I won’t let you play with your gun tonight.”
Natalie remained silent
preferring to spin the pistol’s cylinder.
She listened, fascinated with the clicks.
Perhaps Sylvia had been too harsh.
“Honey, I’m sorry I got mad at you.
It’s just that mommy’s had a hard day.
How about some cookies?”
Natalie cocked the hammer,
turned the monstrous hand-cannon on her mother,
and gently,
oh so gently,
squeezed the trigger.
© Wesick, 2006
(This piece appeared in Vortex of the Macabre, Fall/Winter 2002)TO COMMENT ON THIS POEM CLICK HERE
Holding a Ph.D. in physics and having studied Buddhism for twenty years, Jon Wesick has enjoyed a front row seat at a collision of worldviews. When he spots a shiny piece of wreckage, he darts into the roadway and retrieves a poem, story, or novel. Jon has published over a hundred poems in small press journals such as American Tanka, Anthology Magazine, The Blind Man’s Rainbow, Edgz, The Kaleidoscope Review, Limestone Circle, The Magee Park Anthology, The Publication, Pudding, Sacred Journey, San Diego Writer’s Monthly, Slipstream, Tidepools, Vortex of the Macabre, Zillah, and others. He’s published eight chapbooks, including two that have been honorable mentions in the San Diego Book Awards. His latest chapbook is "License to Rant."