Jessica Dawson
Trading Trumpets for Guns
A gun swells in the palms
of a child like a bee sting
that weighs the fright against
trigger-happy boredom.
The child’s fingers are swollen
with a clumsy curiosity,
and the cool of the steel numbs
the worries of future bullets.
The streets are war for children,
and they fear running out
of lead. Their fingerprints leave
blood stains on their parents’ hearts
who were forced to leave blood
stains on their parent’s hearts
and it continues into generations
past and future, until finally
the pop sounds of shots fired
distort themselves into the brass
infernal blasts of a trumpet,
the original weapon of war
and power. Inside every child
is the sheet music against death.
In their palms, the trumpet sounds
like a battle cry for the future.
—Submitted on 08/30/2020
Jessica Dawson‘s poems have appeared in Cantilevers, as well as in the anthology From the Ashes (Animal Heart Press, 2019), edited by Amanda McLeod and Mela Blust. Originally from central Florida, Dawson lives in Chicago, where she is a rape crisis counselor.
SUBMIT to What Rough Beast via our SUBMITTABLE site.
If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.