Mortar and Pistol

The day they leave 

the bunker, I teach them to grind

yarrow into a stone with the butts 

of their guns. Each man 

cradles a plastic briefcase, full 

of automatics and protein powder. 

Chalky contingencies leak 

a pale path to this candy house 

in the woods. Black currants

gleam like sugar. Their barrels gleam

with the opposite of water.

I place creamy petals

in every mouth; the men’s,

the guns’. Blood congeals metallic, 

everywhere except the tongue. The pistils

in the flower of the face. They 

don’t know, yet, how to kill,

—these bunker men who never 

learned to pollen. To knead. 

To know a life well enough to desiccate it. 

A gun is a hollow deity when our hands

can mold dust to dust.