She Took Away My Guns

by Kevin Ridgeway

cap guns a-popping

in the backyard
robots that transformed
into rifles
shooting plastic balls

that was my arsenal

one day I looked

at her
dead in the eye
and said

“That’s it for me!”

and shot off a cap

toward my temple

the grain of fuzz

in the 1980s camcorder
video is distorted
as the camera was
switched off
abruptly


gone were the guns,
the water pistols,
even
and anything
else that exploded

there was no where

to turn--I had surrendered
to her and the end of
my wild childhood

I had only

the television
left with its
drunken hiss
that sung
its lullabies
to me at night

with a mighty bang