Waffe

Rule number one
of holding a gun
is never stare down
its barrel, but I can’t
help it as I picture
how my grandfather
Ralph came to possess
this particular steel
instrument, the heavy 
grip adorned with 
generations of fingerprints 
mapping out its violent past, 
envisioning Ralph
on the sands of Omaha 
Beach, the ground bedded 
with blood and human 
entrails, eye-to-eye 
with some Nazi asshole 
as they wrestled for control
of the weapon, only
for Ralph to rip it
from his fascist hands 
and put its last bullet, 
pregnant with the weight 
of our family tree, right 
between his eyes. 
But it’s more likely 
that Ralph found it 
after the fighting had 
ceased, abandoned in 
the sand, hands shaking, 
eyes wet with silent 
gratefulness that this 
weapon, a standard 
issue German Luger, 
did not add his blood 
to the miasma of death 
that was this second 
great war, a silence he 
carried home with him 
and held tight to his chest
for the rest of his life.

JERROD LABER

Jerrod Laber is an Appalachian poet and writer currently based in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.