Liberties

Stick in the mud, old fart, what are you doing to get the guns off the street? I am not here to pick on anyone. But now that they have shot Yosi, who ground my meat in Hingham, and his shiny pink meat-truck is for sale, I feel desolate. A gun is a vengeful machine exacting a price. A gun rejects stillness. It wants to get off. A man can be vain— almost like a god—but inside him is a carp biting the muck of a lake. A man who speaks too softly gets hit with a big stick and lopes along behind. A gun is minatory. Still, a week of kindness is greater. Run, hide, evacuate; don’t fire, duck, take cover. At Yosi’s ceremony, his family put a gold cloth on his face. Self-reliant, autonomous, tough, he lay in a shroud of silk.