HOPLOPHOBIA

The most common manifestation of hoplophobia

is the idea that [weapons] possess a will of their own.

                                                           —Colonel Jeff Cooper

He knows it’s irrational

but before the slide cocks back

like the unhinging of a jaw

he will piss himself and beg

the thing to keep its mouth closed.

 

It’s irrational, he thinks,

but he remembers the cackle of firecrackers

thrown at a neighbor’s cat, remembers

how a pocket knife whispered open

and snarled at his mother’s underbelly,

 

he listens for the distinct dialect

of munitions chattering just overhead,

hears wrought iron coughing

like smoke filled lungs

all around him. Even the survivors

 

he found writhing

at the burnt-out remains of a checkpoint

say they heard the bombs

long before they hit, screaming—yes,

screaming—in Arabic. 

 

 

 

 
BEFORE YOU SWITCH US OFF

 

An assembly line somewhere

is still churning out husks

of zinc and cadmium like us

but I guess we shouldn’t expect to remain

useful after our arms of cable rust over.           

So come

 

collect us for scrap, grind us up

in the gear-laden belly of one of us.

Let it be your hand that pries the access door

with a flat edge of knife, your hand

holding fistfuls of wire, pulling until LEDs go dim.

What if we are analog?

 

What if our insides are the inner workings

of some clock you don’t realize is necessary

until the blade gets stuck,

and a current scrambles up fingertips

in a hurry to your heart, remembering

to fry and shut

down every nerve

ending on its way?

 

What if the chassis left clicking and buzzing

in a Detroit scrap yard is still

brimming with circuit and hum?

What if armor—

 

An assembly

line somewhere is

still churning out husks of zinc

and cadmium like us but

I guess we shouldn’t

expect to remain useful after

our arms of cable rust

over. So

come.

HOW TO DISAPPEAR COMPLETELY 

 

You are quarter ghost on your mother’s side.

Your heart is a flayed peach in a bone box.

Your hair comes away in clumps like cheap fabric wet.

A reflecting pool gathers around your altar

of plywood sub flooring and split wooden slats.

You are rag doll prone. You are contort,

angle and arc. Here you rot. Here

you are a greening abdomen, slipping skin,

flesh fly, carrion beetles.

This is where bullets take shelter,

where scythes find their function, breath loses

its place on the page. This is where the page is torn

out of every book before chapter’s close,

this is slippage, this is a shroud of neglect

pulled over the body, this

is your chance to escape.

     Little wraith,

bend light around your skin until it colors you clear,

disappear like silica in a kiln, become

glass and glass beads, become

the staggered whir of an exhaust fan:

something only noticed

when gone. Become

an origami swan. Fold yourself smaller

than ever before. Become less. More

in some ways but less

in the way a famine is less. They will

forgive you for not being satisfied

with fitting in their hands.

 

They will forgive you

for dying to be

 

a bird diminutive enough

to fit in a mouth and not be crushed.

HOW TO GET YOUR GUN SAFELY OUT OF YOUR MOUTH

 

Squeeze—

but not before you put on some tea and clean two cups,

lift shades and pin back curtains. Squeeze—

but not before the end of this song,

before dawn reaches in,

before you turn the page,

before a woman with a lisp apologizes

for dialing the wrong number for a second time.

Not before you learn to pronounce her name.

Go ahead and squeeze

when you know the hinges are tight on all doors,

the house is secure from storm or burglary,

when your laces are tied,

when this commercial break is over,

when the drywall is taped, spackled,

painted and painted with another coat.

After you’ve written your letter,

signed it illegibly, scrawled the letters

so swift and crooked, it becomes the name of another.

After you’ve relaxed the jaw that bites down,

that holds the barrel in place,

after you pull the gun out point it heavenward and

squeeze until the clip is empty as the chamber.

 

 

MACROPHOBIA: FEAR OF LONG WAITS

 

The vet sat with a lap of

warm blood in the lobby

of receiving and didn’t complain

about the wait.

 

His life had prepared him for and led up to

this moment,

 

what with all of the siblings, bus transfers,

dozens of unanswered

 

love letters,

and the second and third final tour of duty.

 

He knows the routine,

muscles relaxed, eyes unfocused

 

on any poster on the wall.

Let faces blur—the equation

 

of linger: age minus wealth minus skin plus time

 

equals linger.

He could write a book on it: Page 19,

 

he snips the back of a comic book,

sends off for x-ray glasses .

 

Page 48, he puckers his lips,

leans forward, Page 191, the closet

 

door finally creaks open, Page 312, his brother

slams a Miller bottle against the mirror of his F-150

 

and promises he ain’t fooling around.

Page 313, the vet leans into the firelight and grumbles,

 

I ain’t afraid of glass, blood or Old Nick, you little

chicken-shit, so come and get me.

-

Jamaal Vs. May is a poet, producer and recording artist from Detroit, MI. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Indiana Review, Atlanta Review, Verse Daily and The Collagist among other magazines and anthologies. He has received a Pushcart nomination, an International Publication Prize from Atlanta Review and a Cave Canem Fellowship.  Jamaal is an MFA candidate at Warren Wilson College and teaches poetry in public schools through the Inside Out Literary Arts Project. His first chapbook “THE GOD ENGINE” was published by Pudding House Press in 2009. Production and engineering credits include The Last Poets, Dead Prez and The Four Tops.