Chlora's Holster Set
© 1998 Ginger Henry Geyer
glazed porcelain with platinum
2 ½" x 11 ½" x 10 ½"
Adaptation of Goya's The Third of May, 1803
Chlora swiped her brother's holster set
and lost the pistol on purpose.
Boys shouldn’t play with weapons anyhow or
they'll grow up to be black and white automatons
like Wyatt Earp or Palladin, one of those guys who
leaves his calling card everywhere.
Three silver bullets were left.
Surely she could turn them into something crafty,
wrap them up as little baby Jesuses for a tiny manger scene
that some Onward Christian Soldier would buy
or make torpedoes for the bathtub submarine
or start a bullet biting contest.
At least get them out of circulation
so they wouldn’t be on the news found lodged
precariously near somebody’s spinal cord.
Since she lost the gun
she knew she couldn’t travel.
Maybe if she became a travel agent
she could go places vicariously, visit some
Spanish martyrs and the Wild Wild West.
One of these days she and Annie would get your gun,
hopefully a BB gun, and go pay back Napoleon,
showing off in his gigantic paintings in the Louvre Museum.
