SHOOTING

So often on the steps or streets we spoke: How is his wife? His child with measles, or the price of bread. They would help me, I thought, if I were in need, and I, them. But at my door that morning, softly saying they knew, and those children still asleep: so frightened, so small, by now their parents– well, who can imagine, and who wants to believe–? The gun I’d kept in the cupboard close, in case. What else could I have done?