Lead
by Janet Kuypers
from the “ Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#082, Pb)
I walked into the bedroom,
opened the closet door,
pulled out the cardboard box,
then opened it to pull out
a pistol case.
I set the piston case down,
opened it,
saw the unloaded twenty-two
and the filled magazine.
I held the magazine
filled with Lead bullets,
reminding myself
that it was always an option.
There’s so much more weight
in those Lead bullets.
They feel heavy in my hand.
Then again,
Lead aprons to protect you from x-rays
are heavy, too.
Lead is so common,
used for thousands of years,
from the Bronze Age,
pushing the Roman economy.
The name for plumbing
even comes from the Latin
“plumbum” because
Lead pipes were used.
And after all these years,
Lead’s not even used
in lead pencils,
that writing stylus
is just a lead mockup. . .
Because Lead comes
from the decay of uranium,
and sometimes could be radioactive,
but still, it can protect you
from things like x-rays
or even nuclear contamination.
So yeah, it can protect you,
and it can also be the missile
in an instrument of death.
As I said,
These bullets
feel so heavy
in my hands.