A Poem by Christopher Shipman

Under the Sun

If a person is murdered a person is murdered
most often by a person the person knows.
That’s what the experts say.
The experts can’t be wrong, right? Meanwhile
the sun says nothing—is a white dot lobbed
over any city. Meanwhile a prison
is any city’s darkest flower. Meanwhile any
ex-lover paroled can become a person
murdered or a murderer. Take the corner store
clerk for example, who never spoke
or smiled. Who watched or who didn’t watch
others enough. The cameraman. Your
optometrist. A drunk father.
The lifeguard at the community pool.
An acquaintance staying too late at the party.
You get the idea. Here, try this:
So, two bricklayers walk into a bar—stop me
if you’ve heard this one. One a murderer
one not. I don’t know where
the joke goes from here, because I don’t know
any jokes about murder. I wish I knew how
to say all of this without sounding
so phony. What’s the thing people say—
you can’t make this shit up. Okay
here it is then. My grandmother was murdered
by her brother-in-law. She knew him
as a father of six. Bricklayer. Her husband’s
odd brother who rarely spoke—never
smiled. How could she know
he was a lover of a secret guilt or that
he often sat alone outside her house gripping
with gloved hands the wheel of
his ’67 station wagon. Let me begin this way:
Larry was his name. 1970 was coming to
an end. He was pissed-off at
his brother, back in prison for beating his wife
and nearly killing another drunk at the bar.
Why wouldn’t his sister-in-law
leave him? Larry listened to his thoughts.
They took him to the corner store
for a bottle. They took him inside a night that
swallowed the sun. They’ve
found me here decades later, saying
nothing about what followed my family after.