By Amorak Huey
If I say everything is a gun
you have to say yes, and
the gun is always going off.
If I say someone could get hurt,
you have to say yes, and
that’s what it means to be alive.
I say, does it have to be
like that? You say yes, and
if you had a dime for every
broken heart in your wake,
you could be elected president.
I say, but—and you interrupt:
no arguing. Someone really
could get hurt. Why, just today
some guy shot his wife.
Yes, and he killed a kid, too,
though that might have been
accidental. I say nothing.
You say yes, and let’s start again:
This is America. Everything is a gun.
Previously published in Rise Up Review.
About the Author
Amorak Huey, a 2017 NEA Fellow, is author of the poetry collections Ha Ha Ha Thump (Sundress, 2015) and Boom Box (Sundress, forthcoming 2019), as well as two chapbooks. He is co-author of the textbook Poetry: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology (Bloomsbury, 2018) and teaches at Grand Valley State University.
Bullets into Bells 