![\"images-3\"](\"http:\/\/noellesickels.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/images-3.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"My high school boyfriend
\nput one in my hand once
\ninsisting I hold it
\nthough the weight of it frightened me
\nthe heavy unfamiliarity
\nits grave, manly shape<\/p>\n
He slid it from the glove compartment
\nwhile he was driving
\npressed it to my palm
\nlike it was some crude Braille
\nof who he was or could be
\nof what I had to learn<\/p>\n
He said it wasn\u2019t loaded
\nbut that I should point it down
\nA gun demands respect<\/i>, he said
\nannoyed at my timidity
\naccepting it at last
\nas close enough to awe<\/p>\n
He collected rifles
\nkept them clean and trenchant
\nracked above the couch
\nwhere every afternoon
\nwe lay clothed and grinding
\nblissful, gun-shy virgins<\/p>\n
He and his twin brother
\nnever used their rifles
\nexcept for hunting rats
\nin the swamp behind their house
\nexploding them
\nwith guns meant for elephants<\/p>\n
The twins were volunteers
\nto an ambulance corps
\nwhere they watched porno flicks
\nwhile they waited
\nfor the smell of blood
\nto call for them<\/p>\n
Blue movies<\/i>, he called them
\nmaking them sound pretty and mysterious
\ninstead of clumsy sex watched
\nin a cold garage
\nby boys and men in white slacks
\nlike new communicants<\/p>\n
I haven\u2019t held one since
\nthat suburban Sunday drive
\nthe boy is long gone, too
\nshed like all virginity
\nin gambled, profligate leaps
\npointed with regret<\/p>\n
Someone said he went to jail
\nfor a son who sold drugs
\nfrom their house filled with guns
\nprotected against intruders
\nwho might inch through proper fences
\nwith precise desires<\/p>\n
I wonder if, in prison, there was talk
\nof blue movies, blood, guns
\nlike hieroglyphic resum\u00e9s
\nor if the men saved such tailored dreams
\nfor women they hoped were waiting
\nto decipher them<\/p>\n
I once loved a boy who loved guns
\nwho bought me a sheer white nightgown
\nI slept in alone at another house
\nwho lay a pistol in my hand
\na token weathercock
\nfor the coming winds<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cCusp\u201d was published in Issue 69 of the journal Earth\u2019s Daughters<\/i>, Buffalo, NY, 2006.<\/p>\n