Willie Smith

Lots’s Lot

Father and I debated who begat the gatling gun. 
I said it could be anyone. 
Father insisted: Bob Gatling, 
or some other son of a Gatling. 
When I failed to lick his boot, 
Dad got under the collar hot. 
Began to holler, me no daughter of his. 
Reached for the 16-gauge blunderbuss. 
Doesn’t take a lot get Dad to pop off, 
and he had not an hour before 
chugged a pint of Popov, 
the vodka that set America free. 
But I trumped his rump. 
Yanked outta my boot the cutest little derringer, 
and gave it to Dad, 
one .45 slug straight to the heart. 
Dad tumbled over, 
dead as the E. R. A., 
and I hit the highway. 
It was either Mexico or a baseball bat. 
I was not about to have begot 
whatever devil Dad had, 
three months ago,
in the dead of night, 
in my womb sowed. 
Out of breath, bathed in sweat, 
stopped at a mom-and-pop for a can of pop. 
The tube behind the register 
bragged they had already overhead 
choppers with searchlights. 
Wolfed the pop; 
dropped empty in recycling. 
Stepped outside, and into – 
automatic-weapon-fire erupting – 
history – flatly, 
in the Bible, denied. 
I lay still in the gutter, 
eyes aimed at the sky.