Among the antique daggers,
blades, and swords,
a solid, hand carved door
propped against a wall.
I’m off to the side
but you’re right under
when it falls.
Everyone rushes to lift,
too late.
You’re a coin
pressed in dirt.
But just the other night,
it was me who died.
In the morning, shaken,
you said you’d shot me
by accident, didn’t actually
see the shooting but the gun
was still in your hand
and you couldn’t imagine
your life without me.
As I couldn’t imagine mine
without you after first
imagining the one non-weapon
in the exhibition
taking you out.
This is a love story.
Everything is admissible.
All day we work to make
ourselves better to each other
but all night
we kill each other off.
We are the bullet and the door
if we are anything at all.
Jacqueline Berger’s books include Left at the Ruin, The Day You Miss Your Exit, The Gift That Arrives Broken, Things That Burn, and The Mythologies of Danger. Her poems have been featured on the Writers Almanac and in American Poetry Review, The Iowa Review, Rattle, and Nimrod.
