Periods like Bullet Holes – by Benjamin Brindise

Periods like Bullet Holes

by Benjamin Brindise

I bought a notebook on the day

another gunman opened fire in San Bernardino, California

It called to me from the shelf of a discount store

In the car, the radio had mentioned an active shooter

and those wavelengths were still playing off the insides of my head

their bend, a twist, to not let me forget

It called to me like the voices of those whose chapter closed

the displacement of so many breaths never taken

pushed air through it

like a closing page

And I picked it up and felt the black grip,

ran my fingers in the golden type face

I hoped I could fill the pages

with descriptions of things I thought were beautiful

and broken, and scarred, and twisted

in just the right way

before a gunman opens fire here

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