Shotgun Love
by Michael Eaton
Judy was my first love
at age six a love so pure
I had no name for it.
We played show and not-tell
in the dirt underneath
my wood-frame home and
once were naked together
in a field of cotton with
stalks thinner than our
legs and boles whiter
than our small sexes.
We went to church on
Sundays and she once asked
what I thought of our being
naked and I said I knew
God didn’t like it,
but I did.
Mother ended our romance
when she heard of Judy
taking me into her parents’ bedroom
with the blinds dirty yellow and torn
where I was taking off clothing
but she wanted to show me
her father’s shotgun and
pulling the trigger blew
a hole in the wall, much
larger than my head.
Even if she had wounded me,
I would have forgiven her,
because never again has love
smelled so much like gunpowder,
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