A Father’s Voice
Marena Benoit
Uncle Dicky is collecting all the beer cans strewn
around the living room in a five-gallon bucket.
Getting ready for target practice.
The cans tinkle against each other like
a tin kaleidoscope, as he slings the bucket
around the house, reflecting the sunlight
from the windows in every which direction.
His neighbor Sam is there too. Dicky’s got his gun
strapped over his shoulder. He throws it over
his chest. He points it at Sam, laughs and
says, put ya hands up.
Dicky responds to the desperation in Sam’s eye by saying, come on
it’s not even loaded but concedes by pointing it slightly to the left.
The bullet then leaves the gun and meets the wall with a kiss
as the wallpaper forms a flower behinds its path.
The voice of his father Oscar was pulling his aim away.
Never point a gun at another human
was Oscar’s favorite mantra, but his father
only opens the bedroom door,
looks at the hole in the wall,
then closes the door with a frown.
Marena Benoit is an English major at Florida State University, and an avid rock climber who has scaled cliffs in Tennessee, Colorado, and elsewhere. Her favorite inspirations for poetry are her rural upbringing and love for nature. She is involved in the literary magazine at her university, so check out the last couple of issues of the Kudzu Review from Florida State if you would like to see more of her work!
