LatinosUSA

CW: childhood trauma
 
Toy guns were forbidden 
at the battered women's refuge,
so I cocked my nine-year-old
thumb and forefinger into a pistol
to blow away imaginary mallards
playing Duck Hunt with my boredom.
Sometimes I'd stalk invisible mice
scurrying up the curtains. Others, 
buried like land mines in the carpet,
or hidden among the canned peas
like cardboard cut-outs for a shootout.
Of course, the biggest prey
was a bear who wasn't supposed to visit,
but crept inside to tuck me in at night,
while I huddled an imaginary shotgun 
like a prayer, waiting for the signal 
for me to cock my weapon,
aim at its head, and wonder 
which of us was the weakest after
all this time.
 
Copyright © 2025 Christian Ward
All Rights Reserved

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Nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, Christian Ward is a UK-based poet with recent work in Acumen, Dreich, Dream Catcher, Dodging the Rain and Canary. He was longlisted for the 2023 Aurora Prize for Writing, shortlisted for the 2023 Ironbridge Poetry Competition and 2023 Aesthetica Creative Writing Award, and won the 2023 Cathalbui Poetry Competition.