Chapter Two: Reminds me of Buk
Narcissistic Elegy
by Kevin Prufer
The little black gun where my heart should be
fired and fired until,
like yours, it stopped. And such a pause in my chest,
my ribs grown steel and the cave all dark, grown barred-
The hammer
just clicked and the gun just sparked.
*
And the trees in the window went whoosh in the wind,
and my little black gun was dead, like yours-
How fool! And grim
as the snow came down so the wind blew white
like a hospital’s room, as white as your sick room-
Soon and soon
*
but your breath wouldn’t come. Oh soon, I said,
but no breath in the room.
And the books on the nightstand
and the nurse call box-I watched your chest but it never rose,
and I watched your chest, but the room now quiet
as the breathless awe
when the guns all stop and the hero’s dead.
by Kevin Prufer
The little black gun where my heart should be
fired and fired until,
like yours, it stopped. And such a pause in my chest,
my ribs grown steel and the cave all dark, grown barred-
The hammer
just clicked and the gun just sparked.
*
And the trees in the window went whoosh in the wind,
and my little black gun was dead, like yours-
How fool! And grim
as the snow came down so the wind blew white
like a hospital’s room, as white as your sick room-
Soon and soon
*
but your breath wouldn’t come. Oh soon, I said,
but no breath in the room.
And the books on the nightstand
and the nurse call box-I watched your chest but it never rose,
and I watched your chest, but the room now quiet
as the breathless awe
when the guns all stop and the hero’s dead.