Percoset Dream after Root-Canal Surgery
       

A robed boy with a swastika tattoo on his forehead
slinks through the church door, shoots wicks from candles
on the altar and stars from windows. The dark grows perfect.

Behind a pew, a cardinal pecks digits on my cell phone,
then flits through a cracked pane toward a Confederate soldier
waving a flame-thrower across a cemetery gate.

I follow the bird past generals perched on cement horses
to a gravestone where my father holds up his Army pistol.
"Sit down," he says. "When you shoot, don't breathe

and don't jerk the trigger." He shows me how to flip
the safety and aim at whiskey bottles on a wall.
I shoot until the clip is empty. The bottles never break.

Snow gathers like ash on the generals' hats.
My father thrusts the pistol in his pocket,
grabs my hand and tugs me home in silence.

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Copyright © 2022 Henry Hart All rights reserved
from The Georgia Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission