Susana Case

Lady Gun

In Youngstown, Ohio, when I was eighteen, 
my first husband bought me a starter's pistol,
silver and black, from the department store 
on Federal Street. It came with a box 
of little bullets – blanks.
For my protection, he said, 
though I didn't know what I needed 
protection from, other than him, and he didn't
show me how to use it. 
He called it a lady gun, small – which fit 
my hand perfectly – and solid, 
like a real gun,
like the unexpected weight of a snake. 
I tossed it into my shoulder bag, 
where it stayed for the next ten years, 
among keys, pens, pots of lip gloss, 
the black paint gradually chipping. 

Back in New York City, I was robbed 
of my dead grandmother's gold necklace; 
the thief did a snatch and run. 
I was too startled to take the pistol out, 
besides it wasn't useful for anything except 
deterrence, those crack cocaine years 
when deterrence didn't work. 

Over time, the gun felt heavier. 
I had shed the husband and I needed to shed 
the pistol, didn't want to admit ownership,
but guns were illegal 
in New York City. I couldn't just 
leave it on the street, like a no-longer-wanted 
couch. I don't remember how I finally 
threw the gun away, only that I did and then 
forgot I had, and years later went riffling
through my desk drawers.

I only fired the pistol once – drove 
to the woods and pulled the trigger, 
wanting to see if it worked. 
It did and it was loud.

Susana H. Case is the author of seven books of poetry, most recently Dead Shark on the N Train, from Broadstone Books, 2020, which won a Pinnacle Book Award for Best Poetry Book and a NYC Big Book Award Distinguished Favorite. She is also the author of five chapbooks. Her first collection, The Scottish Café, from Slapering Hol Press, was re-released in a dual-language English-Polish version, Kawiarnia Szkocka by Opole University Press. She has co-edited, with Margo Taft Stever, the anthology I Wanna Be Loved by You: Poems on Marilyn Monroe, forthcoming in 2022 from Milk and Cake Press. www.susanahcase.com.