Gun Talk

You were speaking to yourself

when we passed on the sidewalk this morning.

I mistook the charcoal gray

flip-open telephone

held against your temple

for a gun.

Your index finger traced

one metallic side, pointed

at the place in front of your right ear

where the hair is shortest

and soon ends above the jaw.

Thinking your words might be

important to someone later on,

I tried to listen in.

I thought the ninety degrees of gun

was angled backward, widened

by the same trick that unhinges city blocks

so some corners feel like the longer side

of a skinny diamond and some corners

feel like the sharpened point.