By John Grey
PROMPT — The way I see it ...
He shows me a wall where a man was shot.
Rub your fingers across the stone.
Feel the holes where they missed.
I'm grateful that they don’t take my finger
and poke it deep into the path the bullet
that killed him actually took.
No need to know how bloody, how fleshy,
is the speediest way to the heart.
It’s been a long day and I'm up to my ears
in sacrifices.
Guide figures, the more deaths he plugs
into my head, the more grateful
that makes me, the bigger his tip.
Bui I'm weary of martyrs
who couldn't keep their mouths shut,
their pistols in their holsters,
their pens in their pockets.
Guide sees my bored face.
senses he's losing me.
He directs my attention to some place
he says was Casanova’s villa.
That roué lived to a venerable old age, he adds.
And so did his assassins.
John Grey is an Australian poet and U.S. resident. His work has been recently published in Sheepshead Review, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review, and Red Weather. His latest books, Covert, Memory Outside The Head, and Guest Of Myself are available through Amazon. His writing is forthcoming in Washington Square Review and Open Ceilings. John writes from Johnston, VT.
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