In this story, the gun
doesn’t go off. The sun
melts the pistol into a vase,
the intact barrel becoming a lip
to hold flowers. The un-murdered
kiss, their clothes sliding
to the floor, their orgasms proof
of a feminine ending.
Denise Duhamel’s most recent book of poetry is Scald. Blowout was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her other titles include Ka-Ching!; Two and Two; Queen for a Day: Selected and New Poems;The Star-Spangled Banner; and Kinky. Her most recent collaborations are CAPRICE (Collaborations: Collected, Uncollected, and New) with Maureen Seaton and The Unrhymables: Collaborations in Prose with Julie Marie Wade. She teaches in the MFA program at Florida International University in Miami.
