Bullet
Cadnam, Michael
Bullet Memory must be a way of celebrating a holiday that does not pass. It is the day of atonement, that not enough thanks can be given to the departed for their simple kindness, taking a...
...The day of incompleteness that not enough was known, not enough memories shared, too much gentle stoicism, a family that saw talk as furniture, best left along the edges in predictable places along the wall...
...It was never replaced, year after year...
...But the other holiday, too, a joy so thorough it frightens, that the morning might flicker and vanish, that the happiness might be too complete...
...Uncle Harland, who died before I was born, cleans his rifle, the gun goes off, and my great-grandmother is by luck alone not sitting in her usual rocker as the bullet is out through the kitchen wall, out through the sunny parlor, to the vast sabbath of the field...
...It is the day of atonement, that not enough thanks can be given to the departed for their simple kindness, taking a fork with hard-water stain along the tines and offering a gleaming one in its place...
...Michael Cadnum...
...There is a bullet hole in the parlor window, the glass spidered...
Vol. 129 • July 2002 • No. 13
