FIRST RESPONDER

Mike Wilson

There’s an active shooter on the end of the bar

armed with cigarettes and Singapore Slings.

If I step forward, she steps back

falling into empty arms that do not catch.

Help, she cries.

She’s wearing a suicide vest

packed with low self-esteem.

Even if I pull the cord, she says,

no one will hear me go bang.

I put my hands over my ears.

The Horsemen of the Apocalypse circle her skull

like Indians around a covered wagon, shooting

a barrage of arrows that make access impossible

except by a SWAT team of angels.

She hopes.

The rocks cry out Who is accountable?

The spider eyes of the universe look at me.

I send her doves inside the breath of my breath.

I pry her fingers from the gun.

Hold still, I say, while I patch that broken heart.

"First Responder" was published in Heroin Love Songs.  In this poem, the narrator breaks through the defenses of a woman in a bar.