Airsoft

Like a whisper from a friend

telling a secret, the gun

reveals itself only to invite—

not start any trouble, mind you,

just to invite—the boy

who listens to come out to play.

And the boy knows not so much,

what the gun’s pellet says

as he understands what the pellet

will mean to say, whistling

through a windy afternoon

past onlookers who neither hear nor see

the streak of inhuman

intent searing through the ether,

so he takes his Airsoft pellet gun in hand

as he might take his laces in hand

to tighten them more securely

around his juvenile ankles—

that’s to say, without much care,

but just out of habit before taking off

to run; everyone runs faster

with tight laces. This makes sense,

of course, and the hope to run can excite

as much as hitting full stride with wind

washing over a boy’s face.

And toy guns masquerade as lethal guns

in a boy’s dreamland where no one dies,

where they simply lie down and play dead,

but they live to play on.

As mysterious as a cat in a box,

a toy gun in a Black boy’s pocket,

the gun neither dead nor alive,

unless offered a chance to empty

his pocket to solve the paradox

of what a day might hold.