Target.

Target

   When I look at the photo of Hamed, boy whose skull
   keeps growing--when I look into those eyes
   that can't close--the iris of Hamed's eye is the center
   of  the target at my uncle's shooting range. I
   was eight when he took me into that force field,
   bullets lined up in ranks. A man polished
   his gun, I thought of a duck's feathery down,
   then another man shoved him, just kidding, jostling,
   pressure in the cooker rising, and there was the downy
   fuzz on my arm, tiny hairs available for harm.

   Then my uncle raised his rifle, and his body let loose
   the way, when the gate lifts, the stuck bull charges.
   He'd hit the target's center, and he thrust the gun
   over his head and leapt up and whooped. I knew
   then that the world was dangerous, soft things

   were in danger. Now I'm older, here morning's
   pastel, the fractal branching of a tree, birds
   twitter and coo, and I look into Hamed's eyes
   and think of my daughter's body held close to my body,
   myself looking out from that other photograph
   the way the mother of Hamed looks out. I told
   myself I would learn to run fast, and if they caught me
   I'd turn and spit and scratch, and I would burn
   a ring around myself with my fierceness, those flames
   would burn them, I would be that angry. As now

   I set fire to the ring I would burn around all children,
   around the body of Hamed whose eyes stay open,
   whose eyes, even after his death, will stay open.

Marilyn Krysl is a writer based in Boulder, Colorado. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Nation, The New Republic, "Best American Short Stories 2000," "O. Henry Prize Stories, "and the "Pushcart Prize Anthology."