The Man with Bullets at the Ends of his Fingers

Has trouble tying his shoes, 
filling out forms, opening beer bottles. 

Makes love gingerly
at best, apologizing steadily, 

but cannot apologize the bullets 
from the ends of his fingers.

Can only point them in nobody’s direction
when he asks for help with doorknobs, 

with ziplocs and buttons and bra clasps and corks. 
Can only laugh and say well don’t we all

have bullets at the ends of our fingers 
in some sense, wouldn’t you say, 

aren’t we all on the verge of detonation?
And when we say no, actually 

no, we don’t and we aren’t,
he makes finger-guns 

and aims his hands right at us. 
And he’s winking but who knows

what winking means coming from the man
with bullets at the ends of his fingers. 

Who knows how low to the ground we ought to get. 
Who knows how many rounds he carries, 

if you can call it carrying, what he does with those fingers, 
if you can call them fingers. 

Who knows the caliber of his convictions,
or how many of us it would take to pin him down,

or how many ways he can find to spell 
expendable, to rub out letters 

like they have no place in names, 
like names have no place in his presence.

Bullets unable after all to recognize the alphabet, 
much less their own small place in it, 

wedged carelessly between breath and bury, 
allotted no more space 

than baffle, than bewilder, than bargain—
than breast or brine or blueberry—

than birdlike, brilliant, 
born—

KATHERINE TUNNING

Katherine Tunning lives in Boston with her partner and a highly variable number of cats. Some of her recent poetry and fiction has appeared in Arc Poetry Magazine, Prime Number Magazine, The Penn Review, and Washington Square Review. You can find her online at katherinetunning.com.