Insley Smullen
The Battle Hymn of Shotgun
Shotgun loves ___________.
Shotgun loves pastries, the kind with birch-paper-flake crusts that stick to the
edge of his upper lip. Shotgun loves showers, exceedingly hot ones, on warm days.
Shotgun loves the mudflaps of eighteen-wheelers he sees on the highway into South
Carolina with the figure of a nude woman in black and gold rubber silhouette. Shotgun
loves women. And dogs. Shotgun loves blue raspberry flavoring, the kind of juice they
have at school, and using a jelly jar from the Goodwill with the Tazmanian Devil on it as
a cup. Shotgun loves his devils which are: refusing to do laundry, an inclination toward
what he is told is graffiti— aka defacing property— aka the landlord decided to sell the
house anyway, so it did not matter where he had left his name in capital or lowercase
letters; taunting his sister, using the family card to buy Cheetos and gum instead of lunch,
falling asleep to the idea of running away and becoming famous. Shotgun loves the
famous people, Shotgun wants one or two of them to come and take him away, to adopt
him. Shotgun loves what any Shotgun his age would love. He wants what every Shotgun
wants.
__________ loves Shotgun.
The paint is stripped away. Shotgun was hiding, waiting, or was mad. Shotgun
wanted to both start over and go back, to stick his finger in the nose of the past and pry
out that nagging thing which kept tickling him, wanted to wipe it on the back of the bus
seat in front of him or flick it into his sister’s hair. He wanted her to squeal, Shotgun
wanted somebody to squeal for him so he wouldn’t have to. Shotgun wanted someone to
be as disgusted as he was. A new pack of crayons, the school supply list. Shotgun knows
permanent markers are serious business, that once you write down what you’re thinking
you can never erase it unless you knife-peel apart the paint and throw it in the trash, or if
you eat it. Shotgun wants to write down a swear word. His baby sister writes,
“Chrissmus!” on the baseboard of the living room. Shotgun feeds her paint chips under
penalty of Indian burns. They have to move, and the city put a sign on the front door to
tell everyone, the kids on the bus see it and the bus driver sees it. Shotgun pushes the cap-
end of the marker deep into his palm to make a mark. There had been space for a dog.
Insley Smullen is a reincarnated opossum. Her first chapbook, DIRT GODS, was published in 2013 by Codorus Press and a second, updated version is forthcoming in Winter 2015. She was a Sophie Kerr Prize finalist in 2011, and nominated for Best New Poets 2015. She writes poetry and forages for carrion in Savannah, Georgia.
For more from Insley Smullen, check out the full issue of Poetry Fix here.