I Taking Aim

 

Shotgun raised, firm against

his shoulder, my father takes aim.

 

The kid with the backwards cap

and the cigarette behind his ear

 

thumbs the button, ready

to release the clay pigeon

 

from the red high-tower.

It will come winging out through

 

the air over the colorful mounds

of shattered birds – a matter of

 

a second or two – & my father

will rotate & follow, try to stay ahead.

 

Look down the barrel.

Three fingers is what you want.

 

Now, though, I’m preoccupied

with possibilities

 

for a poem, the iterations

of metaphor contained within

 

the moment like shot inside a shell.

Yet I’m guilty, also, the greedy

 

archivist, saving scraps, fragments,

half-moments for later use,

 

as if time & love & family

were better hoarded

 

& extrapolated later by ink on paper.

Still, I save my father in my mind,

 

his firm stance, confidence,

his focus with the shell pouch

 

slung over his shoulder.

Sometimes a game is only that.

 

Sometimes a game

is anything but.

 

II The Gun Goes Off

 

Pull. Bang! The shell is ejected,

shot sent through space,

 

but the pigeon falls to earth

uneventfully, shatters in the pile.

 

My father swears, in his lovely,

comic way, his dramatic “fuck!”

 

& turns to me, grinning. “You’re up.”

I come forward, load

 

the bright red shells into the chamber,

hoist & level my gun. I aim,

 

call. The trigger goes. A kick

to my shoulder. Miss. My shot

 

flashes into the no man’s land

of the woods. You fire

 

twenty-five shots in one round

of skeet, twenty-five chances

 

to make dust of clay.

They call gunshots reports,

 

as if the flash & kick is saying

something, or that its thunder

 

should be recorded, like

news which needs telling.

 

I don’t know my score, but

I know there’s more misses than hits.

 

As I step out of the shooter’s box,

my father greets me with

 

the same homespun paternal

wisdom he shares every

 

time we come to Thunder Mountain.

“It’s still fun, Dan, even if you miss.”

 

III Afterwards, Cordite

 

An afternoon of constant aiming,

near constant failing.

 

& the whole time cordite,

the acrid aftermath of the miracle,

 

wafted from the emptied barrels

and marked us. We drive home

 

down the mountain with the smell

of gunpowder permeating the car.

 

I think of how the pigeons flew

out of the red boxes

 

like magic, pulling laughter

from our chests as we chased

 

& fired, as if their flight

was unconnected to our voices,

 

the young guy’s thumb –

each time a new amazement.

 

Later, my mother asks

“How’d you do?” My father says,

 

“We missed some, we shot some.”

Sometimes, to get a little is

 

to get enough. I leave them

in the kitchen & go to my desk,

 

try again to hit, aiming a pen

at more small, important birds.