Thoughts and Prayers   Sometimes I think about my gun — a Savage .250, fitted out with a scope last calibrated long ago. I have it in my sister’s basement, and I hope it’s safe — it was my dad’s.                                              My mother made antelope tacos, elk lasagna, venison chops by the freezerful. I paid due heed — so that’s what guns are for.                                                                And when I hear those tired old thoughts and prayers, they sound like the make-believe rat-a-tat my friends and I hollered down the barrel of our fingers — what fun to play at death.                                                           The men were laughing when they looked up from their kill, watched me hoist the gun, take aim at the green, steaming pile of pronghorn guts, slowly will the bang and shock. I might have been thirteen.     © Michael Fleming Brattleboro, Vermont March 2018