Bad Shot

By Noel Sloboda

Not much for me
in weekends collecting
artifacts from deceased
or evicted people.
Until I discovered
a brass canon
buried in a box lot.

Unlike the dented metal
bookends, tattered
ski-caps, cracked
stereoscopic viewers,
it begged for employment.

The barrel bright
from loving ministrations
of some artilleryman,
wooden wheels hot red,
soaked in blood;
the gun wobbled
from being dragged
across bones
of fallen foes.

It was fast deployed.
The first volley began,
frozen peas for ammunition,
tested distances.
Soon potshots at the cat
--coming nowhere close--
pinged off the mirror.
Rounds at in-laws on the mantle,
more toward the kitchen,
harbingers of war.

Then I loaded marbles
that hit the bay window
hard, cracking it.
This didn’t slow the campaign,
though, or keep me
from targeting everything
I shouldn’t have.

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Noel Sloboda teaches English at Penn State York. His work has appeared in Studies
in the Humanities. His poetry can be found in FRiGG and Waterways: Poetry in the
Mainstream.