by Gail White
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| Families connected to a Nashville school that experienced a fatal shooting earlier this year have created nonprofits to not only promote school safety and mental health resources, but also to form an action fund to push legislative policy changes. The Independent (UK), July 21, 2023 |
If all the young women were hares on the mountain,Then all the young men would turn hounds and go hunting.
Why is your gun so hot, my son,
have you hunted the deer today?
No, mother, the deer were safe from me.
I have hunted another prey.
Is it your father’s gun you found,
that he kept on a shelf so high?
No, mother, this gun is all my own,
for guns are easy to buy.
No one bothered to ask my age,
or how much I could understand,
and it’s easy enough to find the prey
on a tracker in my hand.
I may go hunting along the beach,
or down by the hidden pool,
but the deer are all as safe from me
as the children are safe in school.
Gail White is a formalist poet and a contributing editor to Light. Her most recent collections are Paper Cuts, Asperity Street, and Catechism. She lives in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, with her husband and cats.