As if the open barrel were a lotus;
its roots anchored in mud.

How undeterred
by murky water, it submerges

and reblooms: petals like crystal
glazed and without residue.

As if you never felt something move:
no welcome and prescient ache,

no sudden flexing, no cycle taking shape.
No memory. No calendar. No yield –

because you are the bullet’s shield. As if
you have nothing to lose. As if all that you have

learned to love: the beating heart; the mythic glove
of a palm blooming in the womb; the scent that follows

touch – is suddenly dust. Just the open-grinned,
white-toothed stare down this time;

the stayed and steady practice on your knees
of mastering someone else’s pleas.