The Sunday Poet: Kate Hanson Foster

Kate Hanson Foster

 Kate Hanson Foster's first book of poems, Mid Drift, was published by Loom Press and was selected by Massachusetts Center for the Book as a "Must Read" in 2011. She gained her MFA from Bennington College, and her poetry has appeared in Comstock Review, Harpur Palate, Poet Lore and elsewhere. She lives and writes in Groton, Massachusetts.




The First Gunshot

The first gunshot is not a gun—

It is a child playing with bubble wrap,

and small innocuous feet need the weight

of a whole body for a single, satisfying pop.

The first gunshot is a smile. A laugh. A fool

lit a firecracker in the hallway and someone

is going to ring their neck. There is no puzzle

in the echo—it is the muffled bone-snap

of a branch outside. The backfire of an old truck

turning the corner. The first gunshot is one

last pure breath, and the peace in the peak

of it. An unexpected flower in full vivacious

bloom. Not the start of something. A finger.

A trigger. A round. Not the first cave hollowing

within a body. Not a body hitting the floor

thinking how can I look dead enough—eyes

open or shut. Not run like a deer to the nearest

exit. Not resolving one’s body as a shield to cover

a lover, a friend, a child. The first gunshot

is a cloister of joy. A sweet stillness, so alive,

so subsistent after a burst of a big bright balloon.

No fear. No fight. No flight into action because

it’s not going to happen. Not to you. Not today.