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" 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
