my brother tells me about the gun

He says: Hold it like you mean it.

Otherwise it knows.

He means the animal;

he means the thing in the woods 

we’re pretending isn’t our dad,

isn’t us—

the thing we saw once, and didn’t shoot.

We’re not in the woods today.

We’re in the garage

with the freezer and the paint cans.

We’re in the year

when everything was too loud

and nobody slept.

He says: It isn’t about killing.

It’s about knowing you could.

He presses the barrel

under his chin.

To make a half-stop.

Like a semicolon, like a door just shy of closing.

He’s always smiling in these stories.

I tell myself again: he always smiles.