Eleventh Transmission - 45 Poems - "A Typical Saturday" by Chella Courington

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A Typical Saturday

In Memory of Edwin, Joseph, Kameron, Leilah, Mary, Raul, and Rodolfo.

Sun scorches the West Texas desert.
Air conditioners hum on high.
At a local pool, sun-drenched arms rest on cobalt noodles.

Some guy runs a stop sign and is pulled over.
He steps out of his car and shoots.
Kills a Texas Highway Patrolman just like that.
Steps back in his Honda, his AR-15
beside him, and speeds down I-20, still shooting.

Twelve hundred miles away, it’s a typical Saturday afternoon.
Then, with a soft ping, a news alert appears on my phone:
Eight people killed in Odessa, Texas.

One was at the car dealership with her family.
One was standing in his parents’ front yard.
One was waiting at a traffic light with his wife and two children.
One was talking on the cell to her sister.
One was driving home from work.
One was a veteran of Afghanistan.
One was from El Paso.
The eighth one embraced the gun.

Biography
Chella Courington is a writer and teacher whose poems and stories
appear in numerous anthologies and journals including Spillway, The
Collagist, and The Los Angeles Review. Her novella, Adele and Tom:
The Portrait of a Marriage, is forthcoming from Breaking Rules
Publishing. Originally from the Appalachian South, Courington lives in
California with another writer. chellacourington.net.
Instagram: chellacourington
Twitter: @chellacouringto

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Previously published in Eleventh Transmission:
"A nti-Ode to Betrayal" by Betsy Packard.