by Orel Protopopescu

In a town in Michigan,
on Walmart’s barest shelf,
sat a notebook, virginal
but tempting, by itself.

Several women went for it.
A blond, near twenty-one,
held off two assailants till
her mother pulled a gun.

Pistol-packing Mama yelled,
Don’t pull my daughter’s hair!
(What a priceless lesson for
the school-age children there.)

Blondie, book and hair intact,
redeeming Mama’s toils,
ran to pay, mid-getaway,
for hard-won victory’s spoils.

Those who wrote our right-to-arm,
could they have visualized
a land where guns serve learning,
where writing is so prized?

The moral of this story?
Don’t step into Walmart
without your vest and helmet
and an armored shopping cart.