for jib jobson

On my computer screen, first thing this morning, this gift.
Disturbing and enticing, like a dream. I was alive
when this happened, but I never knew the blood, the pain,
the noise. I was busy making an almost parallel life
out of grease, of family, of familiar pepper trees
fifty miles away. I practiced with a rifle when I was twelve,
quit the first time we went hunting jackrabbits in the hills.
My father made a bow for me of fiberglass, an orange streak
like the sunset over the Pacific’s molten mirror,
and I practiced till the blood rose from my wrist
where the string hit as the arrow passed. In rage,
I hammered an innocent elm tree instead of his
shiny head. Still, I didn’t get to climb rock faces.

People died nearby, bloodlessly, the news delivered
in wives’ walking round the corner. Joe Abbott’s
older brother suffered a divorce after a bullet
scarred his handsome face, a policeman in
the wrong place at the wrong time. His wife
rebelled the only way she could. I wanted
to leave the stinking neighborhood, the reckless
life, the chickens running round without their heads.
I wanted to free my heart to beat wild for that sun
sinking over the ocean, so far away, so present.
Of course, I never got away. It’s everywhere,
violence gathering in a quiet, perfect storm.