I have two memories
of Mike Fowler,
one of a freckled-face boy
who showed me how his father made
bullets
in a basement workshop,
the dense black powder
and brass shells dangerous
and forbidden
to the touch.
Twenty years later,
I read about a fire in a gun shop,
starting in the basement magazine
where the black powder was stored,
the gunsmith,
Mike Fowler, staying behind
to put out the flames.
He died when the entire face
of the building
vaporized,
a firestorm of glass
blasting the streets,
blistering the skins of parked cars
and the three employees inside.
Grey Sparrow Journal 