Brian Turner
Brian Turner is the author of Here, Bullet (Alice James Books, 2005; Bloodaxe Books, 2007). He has recently completed a second collection (A Trauma-Junky’s Delight), which will be available from Alice James Books in early 2010. His work has appeared in The Georgia Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Poetry Daily, and the Crab Orchard Review, among others. He has received an NEA Fellowship in Poetry and a Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation. He currently lives in California and is working on his third collection of poetry.
Here, Bullet
Thursday, June 25th, 2009If a body is what you want,
then here is bone and gristle and flesh.
Here is the clavicle-snapped wish,
the aorta’s opened valves, the leap
thought makes at the synaptic gap.
Here is the adrenaline rush you crave,
that inexorable flight, that insane puncture
into heat and blood. And I dare you to finish
what you’ve started. Because here, Bullet,
here is where I complete the word you bring
hissing through the air, here is where I moan
the barrel’s cold esophagus, triggering
my tongue’s explosives for the rifling I have
inside of me, each twist of the round
spun deeper, because here, Bullet,
here is where the world ends, every time.