Target
Krysl, Marilyn
Poem Target When I look at the photo of Hamed, boy whose skull keeps growing-when I look into those eyes that can't close-the iris of Hamed's eye is the center of the target at my uncle's...
...Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Nation, The New Republic, "Best American Short Stories 2000, " "O...
...Then my uncle raised his rifle, and his body let loose the way, when the gate lifts, the stuck bull charges...
...I was eight when he took me into that force field, bullets lined up in ranks...
...I told myself I would learn to run fast, and if they caught me I'd turn and spit and scratch, and I would burn a ring around myself with my fierceness, those flames would burn them, I would be that angry...
...Henry Prize Stories, " and the "Pushcart Prize Anthology...
...A man polished his gun, I thought of a duck's feathery down, then another man shoved him, just kidding, jostling, pressure in the cooker rising, and there was the downy fuzz on my arm, tiny hairs available for harm...
...As now I set fire to the ring I would burn around all children, around the body of Hamed whose eyes stay open, whose eyes, even after his death, will stay open...
...He'd hit the target's center, and he thrust the gun over his head and leapt up and whooped...
...Marilyn Krysl Marilyn Krysl is a writer based in Boulder, Colorado...
...Poem Target When I look at the photo of Hamed, boy whose skull keeps growing-when I look into those eyes that can't close-the iris of Hamed's eye is the center of the target at my uncle's shooting range...
...Now I'm older, here morning's pastel, the fractal branching of a tree, birds twitter and coo, and I look into Hamed's eyes and think of my daughter's body held close to my body, myself looking out from that other photograph the way the mother of Hamed looks out...
...I knew then that the world was dangerous, soft things were in danger...
Vol. 68 • April 2004 • No. 4
