There Are Lots of Guns Here
and we cannot trust the refrigerator. 
When I return from the doctor with no   
diagnosis you’re standing in your underwear 
waving a bag of rotting vegetables 
like a monstrance. We cannot trust 
the radishes the color of a sad  
radish’s heart the minute it’s pulled 
from the ground and the rain 
has a voice like a president 
who cannot believe something 
he has just said about security 
or debt. We cannot trust 
the veteran on the first floor 
who stalks the parking lot 
barefoot in the rain then backs 
his truck into six different spots. 
We cannot trust that he hates  
you for being an immigrant, 
or that he has a gun, but maybe 
one day soon we’ll dial 911  
and I do not think I could write  
the transformative elegy, the one  
that turns from grief to consolation  
in memory to an affirmation  
of immortality. Forgive me  
there are so many situations  
to diffuse that one wonders  
why buy fresh produce 
in the first place. Let’s bury  
our faces in the parsley; 
let’s seal up the day 
like a body bag. 
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