Zachary Kluckman

Dumb. Luck.

Sound, like a knife hitting a tooth but no knife. Bullet.

Hit the adobe wall an inch from my head, dull and sharp

at the same time. Have you ever heard such a thing?

The brick exploded, sent slivers of stone slicing through

the air, pierced my ear. Right here. See the scar? They say

life passes in front of your eyes when you’re about to die.

Fact, I’ve seen it. Twice. When it kisses your ear like a lover

on the way out the door, with an unwanted promise to

come back around, death squeals like all the babies you’ll

never have at once. The irony of that particular bullet,

wasn’t even meant for me. Dumb luck. Some jackass

jacked up on coke fired randomly, to celebrate the new year,

or their own capacity for violence. Who knows? All the guns

I’ve had fired at me, and the one that nearly dropped me

was a stray, looking for any target to give it one shot at

existence with a purpose. And then it was gone. Imagine

that. A moment of heat then the cold. Forever.

Zachary Kluckman, the 2014 National Poetry Awards Slam Artist of the Year, is a Pushcart Prize nominee, Scholastic Art & Writing Awards Gold Medal Poetry Teacher and a founding organizer of the 100 Thousand Poets for Change program. The founder of MindWell Poetry, he has authored three poetry collections. You can find him by name on Facebook, and on Instagram @physicalpoet.

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