If You Don't Like It

everyone has a gun or loaded question

I’m no specialist, but I am here

and perhaps that’s enough

if you don’t like it, you can leave

we underestimate fear as an export

it is a book of swatches,

ley lines through stone and broadcast,

3-D printable from home

Last night, my neighbour’s car

was set on fire by an angry ex—

how to escape that kind of heat,

police tape melting to the cooling frame

Are you a gun owner? This is inevitable

I don’t have children of my own, but the park

that was our front yard was full

of playground equipment unused

except for dealing or sex work,

a barter system, trembling hands

stealing bags and catalytic convertors—

if you value it, don’t leave it behind

one day, they had crayons and paper

from my neighbour’s sedan

their laughter made me terrified

of what I was capable of

I want to tour the States—

what cities are safe, where should I avoid

the West is full of ghost towns,

if you don’t like it, you can leave

there are places no one

should be in the first place, whole towns

made of hospitals and first responders

to the speed of interstate violence

You Yanks love guns like we love rugby

Like anything else,

love can be scaled up, sport or national

pastime

Anywhere a team loses, domestic

violence increases—

there are always two teams

and there is so much loss

But where do you recommend?

Some of the best meals I’ve had

were in a vegetarian restaurant

in Laramie, Wyoming

surrounded by cattle ranchers,

not far from the fence where

a nation was left for dead—still

there is real love amongst those booths

further down the highway, the bust of Lincoln

rises from rock, spotlights cut holes in the night

my country is incapable of caring for itself

if you don’t like it, you can leave

everyone here has made those shots their own

you can hear them break and rattle round

in their telling, unfamiliar and unnerving,

a bone spur or other growth in the body

sometimes you can forget it’s there

sometimes you remember where you were

when you heard nineteen children dead,

their teachers too

it was this morning—I was drinking coffee

and watching the controlled chaos

of two fantails in the yard, their affection

exploding gravity and physics—

a few small feathers in the afternoon

pinned to the bottom of the fence

as a shadow, blood already worked

into the grain

the cats that walk the fence line

gather in the burnt-out car today

the warmth of it lulling them to sleep

its boundaries meaningless

I’ve already forgotten where I was last week

when twelve were shot dead elsewhere

I’m losing my geography

If you don’t like it, you can leave