NewPoetry

David James Brock

I love the laser that kills the man in the first
minutes of the movie. I love the laser’s boom.

I love the elephant ivory grip of the laser held
at the cowboy’s thigh. He didn’t know he’d kill

The Fox today—with the laser—but there is
pink blood in the dirt of a Mexican cantina.

There is a laser in the backdrop of the sunset.
There is a blue eye taking aim from the back of the

laser’s barrel. The casings clunk on the horse
trough’s oak. A man’s skull is deleted over yonder,

and the undertaker titters. I love the rumoured
laser that shut down an animal phys exam in ‘99.

The laser that was sold for a tasty profit in the
pawn shop. We are on the hunt for lasers to kill

the ten best terror boys. Lasers that kill a reporter
and a cameraman live! That fit in the wide receiver’s

sweatpants pockets, that steal a Slim Jim or a pack
of darts, whisk apples from heads without singeing

single hairs. But then, I fired lasers at beer cans, begged
Pal to bury the photographic evidence. How murders

are covered up, let alone the death of a Coors can,
is an A&E nooner mystery. Come on, Pal. A laser in hand

will kill my rep. I feel no little pang of guilt when the
8-bit duck explodes, when Bambi’s mom dies, when

someone calls the knife a man’s way to bite it. A kid
gets shot and cooked through the throat in a movie and it’s

labeled a comedy. I can’t cry in the face of each laser
pointed directly at me. Psych! They ain’t pointed at me.

The laser is a God’s gift. So go on, give lasers to
teachers and students, priests and believers, sinners

and pilots, one secret passenger. The plane cruises
at 30,000 feet, no one aims up, and we sleep all right.