News from St. Louis
Lowry Pei
The wife holds her pistol as if
it’s a cigarette she’s in the middle of smoking,
and she’s showing it to you:
See, I have a cigarette.
When I’m holding a cigarette,
nothing can happen to me.
Could that be what she’s thinking?
What is she imagining that she is doing?
What if her cigarette should drop an ash, or a bullet
just at the moment, in her waving of it,
when it happens to be pointing at a human being?
Does she think that person would die?
Maybe she thinks it’s a toy gun
like the one Tamir Rice had
when the police shot and killed him.
Maybe she and her husband don’t notice
that at one point in this half-minute clip,
they turn toward each other to exchange a few words,
they seem to be pointing their guns at each other,
and at that moment they could, with a slight
pull of two triggers, kill each other.
The gun is her finger – she gestures with it,
indicating something she wants him to notice.
Does she remember
that pointing this finger can burst someone’s heart?
What dream is she standing in?
Who is she, in her dream?
She must not be in war, because in war
there would be other people trying to shoot her,
but her whole body tells you this never crosses her mind.
In her dream there is only one army.
No one could be trying to shoot her, because
no one out there, beyond the front lawn,
is a person like her, no one else could
determine, as she can, their fate.
The people on the street are demanding justice.
If they were there for revenge, she’d be one of the first to go.
