Duplex with Gun

By Dotty LeMieux

The gun tucked neatly in the large man’s waist
I avoid his stare, move slowly, lock the door

I move slowly out the door
Cap pistol held at the ready

The gun moves out in the large man’s hand
Children run fast across the lawn

I cross the lawn going pop pop pop
Children scream and then they drop

Children scream, I watch them drop
One by one, as the big man shoots

The children laugh, they jump up, shoot back
Harmless popping under the sun

The popping stops, the sun is gone
The gun tucked back in the large man’s waist.

Dotty LeMieux is the author of four chapbooks, Five Angels, Five Trees Press; Let Us Not Blame Foolish Women, Tombouctou Books; The Land, Smithereens Press, and most recently Henceforth I Ask Not Good Fortune, Finishing Line Press. A new chapbook is forthcoming from Main Street Rag, likely to appear in 2023. In the late 1970s to mid-1980s, she edited the eclectic literary and art journal Turkey Buzzard Review in the poetic haven of Bolinas, California. Her work has appeared in numerous print and online journals and anthologies, including Writers Resist. Dotty lives with her husband and two aging dogs in Northern California, where she practices environmental law and helps elect progressive candidates to office. You may read more at her blog.

The photograph, “Halloween at Gun World, Burbank,” is by Stephen Sossaman, a writer living in Burbank, California. His primary resistance work is within the peace movement.

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