by Kristina England
I.
No one knows what she was thinking.
How could we?
Half of us are still trying to understand
ourselves
never mind some woman
who drove through a barrier.
The world is full of barriers
anyway.
II.
A gun is designed to discharge bullets.
A car is used to transport.
Place these two objects together
create friction
a chase
a bang bang bang
that leaves people ducking.
III.
Crazy, people say...
to open fire on a car
to keep driving
to be an onlooker
IV.
An officer empties his gun
stumbles home through the headlines
reaches down for his toddler
kisses his lil’ chub-chub.
He thinks of the confined gas within his gun
how he released it into moving windows
that sometimes a tubular weapon
can protect the many
yet leave a child motherless.
He goes about his evening
barely able to sleep
reloads the device in the morning
because the next time could be different
it always is
and he is so close to hearing
his daughter say the words -
“dad”, “daddy”, “dada”.
Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her poetry and fiction is published or forthcoming in Extract(s), Gargoyle, New Verse News, The Story Shack, The Quotable, and other journals.
