Joshua Kulseth
Image by Jens Lelie on Unsplash
Joshua Kulseth earned his BA in English from Clemson University, and his MFA in poetry from Hunter College. He is currently a PhD student in poetry at Texas Tech University. His poems have appeared and are forthcoming in South Carolina’s Best Emerging Poet’s anthology, Cathexis Northwest Press, Pilgrim, Tar River Poetry, Rappahannock Review, The Windhover, and others. His book manuscript, Leaving Troy, was shortlisted for the Cider Press Review Publication Competition.
Gun
On the land
my brother palms me a revolver:
for wild dogs.
I go to work
hauling cut limbs in my white pick-up.
This morning’s work
is clearing trees, mine
removal; I park my stack at the pile and kill
the engine.
I remember dogs,
and grab the gun from the passenger’s seat,
unholster it
and glints of light
squint my eyes. I tuck it in my pants
and hop to offloading limbs.
It looks good,
I think, with the butt stuck from my waistline,
crooked over the belt.
The pines all stacked in clumps
I want only to waste some yipping mutt;
I train to the treeline
the black muzzle
waiting for a shaded barreling figure
to cross my needled sight.
But no dogs,
and five idle bullets later
I join my brother in the clearing.
Loaded with tools
we set to finish, when from the dark
a wild cat darts,
blur of fur and claw,
my brother quick to aim, guns the beast down
only feet from freedom—
not cleanly, or enough,
so the bullet cleaves bone and lames
the twitching figure;
do you want to finish it?
I run with gun in hand, firing through the eye,
and ease the barrel back in place.
The strangeness,
the sound it makes
in the outcrop acoustics
like splintered wood,
ringing something final
in the thrill and shame of killing.
I wonder
at the gun’s warmth, in the air
reminders of gun powder,
the ease of sliding
into power, the snug grip affirming.
I hold the pistol
in my mind, perfect
the fit and weight. Each bullet
slides in chambers
like children
put to bed, tucked in steel;
honed and hopeful.
©2021 West Trade Review
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