if you are ever handed a gun
in a social setting

there is this funny
expectation

that you coo
over design or heft,

maybe portability.
it is polite to find

some reason to admire
the machine.

when the new friend
laid the weapon

onto my lap
i couldn’t appreciate

in that moment
its promise of violence.

your gun is beautiful.
you should be very proud.

i am thinking of the newborn
my sister-in-law birthed

two days ago.
i’m afraid

to hold a gun
and a baby

for two different reasons
but my hands

feel dangerous
in just one way.

 

Catherine Weiss is a poet and artist from Deer Isle, Maine. Their poetry has been published in Tinderbox, Up the Staircase, Fugue, Bodega, Counterclock, petrichor, HAD, Taco Bell Quarterly, and Flypaper Lit. Catherine is an artist behind the collaborative poetry chapbook/card deck I WISH I WASN’T ROYALTY (Game Over Books, 2020). They are also the author of the chapbook-length poem FERVOR (Ginger Bug Press, 2021), and the full-length poetry collections WOLF GIRLS VS. HORSE GIRLS (Game Over Books, 2021) and GRIEFCAKE (Game Over Books, 2023). Find more at catherineweiss.com.