At Gunpoint
Anthony Liccione

Everything seems late,
senses finally come to stark
emptiness, and rest to skeletal—
you count your blessings
as life flashes in fret,
when (you’re) at gunpoint.

Of fears and regrets
the always need to prove
to the world, of hierarchies and
diminished things, a worthwhile
cause when it stares back at you
and tells you all is late.

So you can hang your head
high, your values low
swallow those shallow
forgive nesses, to tell her
that love is only the distance
between anger and a trigger,
and a reason to die.