Jeremy Nathan Marks’ most recent poem to appear here was “The tall glass towers” (January 2014)
Guns
By Jeremy Nathan Marks
Nearly every night now
my wife will wake
startled at having seen guns
in her dreams
Sometimes they come up as flowers
in carefully tended gardens
she says
their bullets passing through the air
with the gossamer ease of dandelion seeds
Or they ride the buses;
passengers with discounted fares
holding fistfuls of transfers
before boarding subway trains
taking them to offices, malls and museums
And when I ask
what guns? whose guns?
where do they come from?
all that she can say is
Guns
That is what they are
and that is from where;
they simply are everywhere.
Unfortunately, it’s true. Guns are everywhere, and it’s frightening.
I’m afraid her nightmares are reality.