What a world if the bullet had
soared just a little to the right,
unabashed and unafraid
like the red brick barreling through Stonewall.

Maybe then the heavens wouldn’t weep,
echoing the chorus of cries from city streets.
Tiny, trembling hands grasping feebly for comfort,
fisting into the smooth cotton lapels of a baby blue dress,
and a mother clawing at her masked captors.
¡Por favor, mi bebe!
Ice colder than January’s bared breast,
winter that breathes frost onto forgotten wheat and corn
and kisses chubby wet cheeks.

If the bullet had clenched its teeth and dared to veer right,
her mirrored medicine cabinet wouldn’t be filled with sand
and raw estrogen.
Powder cluttered and sifted in a rusty sink,
glass and needles sitting as sentinels for sorrow,
clawing at her veins, coalescing with antiandrogens
while white coats whisper ‘sorry’.

A small stomach gurgles and grumbles,
growling its tired ache for days.
Dusty brown cabinets of cobwebs and
checks snapped up from mailboxes by wrinkled white hands.
A child curled on disheveled cotton sheets
turns their blank face up to the starless sky and
curses the bullet that didn’t crest right.