Fight or Flight

Your oldest is born to fight: your lullaby,

your warning, your breast.

Yet, road blocked, he gives way, puts a gun

in his mouth, runs from

capture to death. After, your husband loses

his fight, too, retreats west

for bar-breathing and grief. You wash and press

left-behind shirts, pass

them down to Freddie, Doc, and Lloyd—

Lloyd, the only son

who will outlast the gangs, the Depression,

you. He’ll marry, move,

stock shelves at the market, learn honest

work. Then one night

his wife, threatened by something unseen,

will put a hole in his head

at the table. If only she had surrendered

to instinct as old as beasts: