Dead men never meet
lucky
because the Dead Man
has a gun he wants to use
a blunderbuss
dense and unwieldy as its name
straps it to his back
shells jingling in his trouser pockets
found it under a fig tree
one day in late September
where he was resting
out of breath and
scratching love hearts in the dirt
things old romantics do
sombrely weighed the gun in his hands
aimed at a butterfly
dancing atop the stinging nettle
pulled the trigger
the sound like being caught out on
a lie in a dream 

…

Tristan Foster is a writer from Sydney, Australia. His debut short story collection Letter to the Author of the Letter to the Father was published from Transmission Press.