Variations on Violence
by Coley Gibson
There is a woman who survived a bombing. She recalls the ball of light from the window of her school, how it cascaded: a pearl pregnant with direction, a compass with a tongue made of flames.
*
Horses barrel their copper chests into crowds. Neither flight or flee; a third choice: to lean in with blinders. The heart a stutter; rearing and rhythmless.
*
The bomb casted a curtain of silver over their pinched faces. She recalls the way it broke into hues of orange found in skinny glasses of juice. How it made her suddenly and irreversibly quenched.
*
At night, one horse stands guard while the herd sleeps. The horse’s ear swivels like a satellite. A twitch in grass; a threat as straight and hungry as a bullet.
*
There is eerie clarity before disaster. Details as sharp as seasons. Stillness of water, light floating upwards like scum. Death bobs on the surface, far enough away to be mistaken for a feathered animal: a creature coming up for air in the dead of night. The body a rocking horse; swinging in limbo, gawking and moon-eyed.
*
The last thing the woman remembers is the smell of milk cartons blossoming in the cafeteria.
*
I thought violence was something you knew when you saw it. The way you can feel a fire nearby. Door knobs that burn, the smell of smoke leaking past wallpaper. The cliches elope:
the back of your hand to feel
for heat, don’t go back for others.
*
The woman knew, almost instinctively, the beauty that called out to her was coming to destroy her. All that was left to do was pray the freight train of light would kill her quickly. Fluorescent white, pushed past bone. A numbness like pale static.
*
Horses have vision so broad, so borderless. Three eyelids peeled backwards like sliced fruit, retinas so dark they bounce shadows. Their only blind spot is directly in front of them. A triangle of teeth: an underpass of light they never see coming.