April Anthology 2017: Second-hand box

[4/4/2017]

My paint-box was made to store bullets,

Camo-green, sturdy, and smelling of gunpowder ghosts.

It gleams with an art student’s copper phoenix sigil

And remembers the shapes of brass shells.

Its contents have laid low duck and deer and

Gallon jugs, painted rings;

Shed blood and broke bone and

Tattered cardboard boxes, shattered shining glass.

I’m taking it hunting through fairytale forests.

I’m setting my sights down the length of a brush,

And hoping to take down a piece of my soul.