Hillside

We trooped down the hillside the four

of us caught up in the old American ideal

shooting irons and the boom we carried 9mm and

12 gauge (should I be specific? double-aught)

along with milk jugs, red food coloring

vinegar and baking soda because we’d make

those little volcanoes in science class

and we understood what went boom and

we planned to stain that f*****g hillside red;

We lined them up those lonely milk cans

and we took aim and lit up that click and

clack the feeling of destruction caught up

in that American ideal of making something

that is… isn’t, we watched the boom we felt

the boom in our shoulders and our palms

we painted that f*****g hillside red;

Later she used that flick knife I envied to dig

a slug from that red dirt flat fronted

blunted from the earth she dug it carefully

broad-shouldered, split, like a claw

she filed down the edges, she drilled a hole

and wore it around her neck like a badge

reminding her of the day the four of us

f*****g stained that hillside red.

Reviews

[John the Baptist]

Well, we Americans do love our guns. And what could be more fun than splattering milk jugs and painting a hillside red with food coloring? I think I might be a little wary, though, of a girl who makes a pendant out of a shotgun slug. Especially if she carries a flick knife. I think I would try to stay on her good side.

[JR]

She's one tough chick, even all these years later. Kick your a*s soon as look at you. LOL.