Son of a Gun

The gun was married to a tractor wheel. The tractor wheel’s parents were a snowball and a mink coat. The third cousin was a fishing rod. Or a second coming. The in-laws were two moving parts. The niece was a pinball machine. The son said, ‘This family has no business being together.’ Then he split.

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Jumped the Gun

The son of a gun robbed his father at knifepoint. When he dug through the wallet, he discovered a picture of himself. These are the situations you find yourself in when you have been raised by a gun.

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Gun Down

The gun fell into the lake. The gun fell onto the scaffold. The gun fell for the trombone. It was a meet-cute. The gun fell over. The gun fell like a crutch almost every night.

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Sure as a Gun

On the street, the gun bumped into a model train. The model train was walking with a drill and a grapefruit spoon. Later, the gun stopped to say hi to a passing colander. The gun was certain the word carried right through her very chest.

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Eat the Gun

‘In the morning, under the right conditions,’ the gun whispered to the rest of the theatre, “I am actually an orange dreamsicle.”

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Evan Nicholls is a poet and collage artist from Virginia. His chapbook of poems and collages, Holy Smokes, is available from Ghost City Press. Find more of his work at enicholls.com.