Playing Bang Bang With A Shiny Pistol That Wasn’t A Toy (He Was Only Three Years Old)

He was not a well regulated militia
(although he did have some toy soldiers),
and he was not defending himself against tyranny
(unless you count the bad guy that he saw on the television).
Nor did he shoot in self-defense.

He was just a little boy
playing bang, bang you’re dead
with a shiny toy pistol that
turned out not to be a toy
and which lies now in cold, dead hands.

It was an accidental shooting
they said on the news.
But what is accidental about
a gun left in a toddler’s reach?

Will this keep you awake tonight, Wayne LaPierre,
Or will you be too busy wining and dining lawmakers
To be sure they don’t pass stricter laws and
hey look kids, shooting can be fun.

He was just a little boy
who thought that the shiny gun was a toy,
And now he is dead,
And it isn’t a game anymore.

By Lucinda Marshall

A poem from Disarm: A Themed issue Responding to Mass Shootings in America

Biography:

Lucinda Marshall is a writer, artist, and activist. Her poetry publications include Sediments, GFT, Indolent Books’ What Rough Beast Series and the upcoming Poems in the Aftermath Anthology, Stepping Stones Magazine, Columbia Journal, Poetica Magazine, Haikuniverse, and ISLE. Her poem, ‘The Lilies Were In Bloom’ received an Honorable Mention in Waterline Writers’ Artists as Visionaries Climate Crisis Solutions contest. Lucinda mentors the award-winning Gaithersburg, MD Teen Writing Club, and hosts the DiVerse Gaithersburg Poetry Reading and Open Mic. For more information about her poetry and other work, please visit her website, Reclaiming Medusa, http://www.lucindamarshall.com.