Velocity Squared

By Flavian Mark Lupinetti

when the gun smoke clears
and the EMTs bring the bodies to my ER
and I ask why they bothered and they say
we need someone to pronounce them most
times I say you pronounced them just fine
but today I can’t bear to make that joke
because these aren’t so much bodies as
they are chunks of protoplasm subordinated
to the law of physics that dictates force
equals mass over two times velocity squared

when the gun smoke clears
I reflect how clever of Eugene Stoner
who shrewdly designed his AR-15
to fire rounds of a petite .223 caliber
but to propel them at 3200 feet per
second because how else to
penetrate steel plate at 500 yards or
disarticulate a leg from the pelvis
with a flesh wound below the knee
unless you rely on velocity squared

when the gun smoke clears
it still amazes me that these
headless corpses and these
exploded chests each resulted
from a single shot yet it makes
perfect sense mathematically
if you want to create an exit wound
the size of an orange with a bullet
smaller than your Bic pen
you need that velocity squared

Flavian Mark Lupinetti, a poet, fiction writer, and cardiac surgeon, received his MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. His work has appeared in About Place, Barrelhouse, Bellevue Literary Review, Briar Cliff Review, Cutthroat, Sport Literate, and ZYZZYVA. Mark lives in New Mexico.

Image credit: Jasper Nance via a Creative Commons license.

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