Bang! Bang!
Uncle scooped us up and
out our beds, covered our
heads with his body as he
hunched over us, us scared down
to the wooden floor, which we
knew too well by the time we were

ten. Through the static on the
news channel, newly lost mothers
reminisced about their now-gone sons.
Bang!
I wondered why the cops came
but didn’t stay long enough
to stop it from happening
the next night.
Late nights, I
thought of my parents-one taken
by the Bang! that crashed
through the bathroom window,
the other by the Bang! that went
racing through an outside air
that was never safe.
Bang!
Bang!
My uncle scoops us up and
out our beds. He covers us.
The bangs stop. “We can’t breathe,” we
tell him. The floor is turning red.
I turn and ask my brother, tears in both
our eyes, “Do you think the cops
will stay this time?”