" Artifact

As long as I can remember you kept the rifle--
your grandfather's an antique you called it-

in your study, propped against the tall shelves
that held your many books. Upright,

beside those hard-worn spins, it was another
backbone of your pas, a remnant I studied

as if it might unlock-- like the skeleton key
its long body resembled-- some door i had yet

to find. Peering into the dark muzzle, I imagined a bullet
as you described: spiraling through the bore

and spinning straight for its target. It did not hit me
then: the rifle I'd inherited showing me

how one life is bound to another, that hardship
endures. For years I admired its slender profile,

until-- late one night, somber with drink--you told me
it still worked, that you kept it loaded just in case,

and I saw the rifle for what it is; a relic
sharp as sorrow, the barrel hollow as regret. "

― Natasha Trethewey , Thrall