> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://hyperallergic.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # "Guns on the Table" by Rosebud Ben-Oni - URL: https://hyperallergic.com/guns-on-the-table-by-rosebud-ben-oni/ - Published: 2015-04-16T19:38:31.000Z - Updated: 2025-11-24T16:43:28.000Z - Description: Our poetry editor, Joe Pan, has selected a poem by Rosebud Ben-Oni for his series [http://hyperallergic.com/tag/hyperallergic-poetry/] that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers. - Author: Joe Pan - Tags: Poetry, Hyperallergic Poetry, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:08 (2014, 2015, part 2) *Our poetry editor, Joe Pan, has selected a poem by Rosebud Ben-Oni for* [*his series*](http://hyperallergic.com/tag/hyperallergic-poetry/) *that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers.* \* \* \* ![Anton van Dalen, "The Shooting Gallery" (1982), pencil drawing (23 x 29") (image courtesy the artist)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2015/04/theshootinggallery.jpg) Anton van Dalen, “The Shooting Gallery” (1982), graphite on paper, 23 x 29 inches (image courtesy of the artist, and P.P.O.W Gallery, New York) ## Guns on the Table In the years I lived With a taiwanese former pop star Who couldn’t feed the business Couldn’t hang with the gangs of asia Behind johnnie to’s triad odes In which there are no guns at all In his films gangsters are strangled They are chopped up in meat grinders And fed to dogs Tethered to sworn brothers Who will stab to death sworn uncles *That’s the business and could you* *Could you* The former pop star’s mother asked She’s produced films all over asia She wants to know just what I’m made of How would I handle Would I go missing For hours like carina lau In *days of being wild* Blindfolded Shot topless By those guns on the table Could I could I too Just to make a film would I Sit in a restaurant straightforward Somewhere in central Where anyone who’s anyone in hk knows Business is done elsewhere Would I write of mexico’s guns With hong kong gangsters Who finance it all *Don’t you know what I know* She said *when you roll up to the table* *What will you show* That summer 3 men came to my childhood home Claiming they’d fix the cable My parents didn’t own Then father wanted a gun but mama Said no this woman Loves clint eastwood and desperado She forgives the scantily clad for the gore My mama is guns on the table Her first words in english Were make my day no At 12 while abuelo hunted javelina along the border She chased away a man who came to take their home She alone With a butcher’s knife And then a shovel After it all mama couldn’t walk straighter She threw off every saint and every novio *Don’t forget* she says *why el mariachi* *dies alone* On the border police kidnapped an uncle In that long before of mexico Long before When the cartels were still in colombia The police threw him to jail Poked him in the ribs Skinned a print off a finger He was only freed when my family gathered Enough cash the kind to bring Guns to the table And what of his grandson The namesake of my abuelo Born of the border He got 60 years at 18 Gangs addiction first-degree because what else What else but for guns on the table I’m more like my cousin than you’ll ever know I’m no heroine I’m not your girl What would I do at times To get done without the getting When in israel I shot my first rifle It knocked me off my feet I was A firehose of firemen thrown I arose Vaguely heartbroken then vengeful I wanted more Not some vato in his backyard With tactic-issued alphabetized spit-polish I wanted simple Four shells in a pump action Pick myself off One by one In some wide wide Open I wanted Recoil I WANTED Recoil I want For my cousin Strung on heroin Trying to take his life to avoid prison My cousin making it known on a phone Through glass separating his hand from my own At 18 he’s done what he was to do Now how to disappear How to go about Without eating your heart When someone rolling up to the table About wolves and brotherhood And what of a woman What’s she to do When she knows the business All too well when they came knocking That summer knocking on the door Honey little friend don’t you know K-dramas can’t ever show Anything at all even simulated But in every one there’s a woman Seized by the arm don’t you know She wants to she wants to she has To be told honey do you feel lucky Well now don’t you \* \* \* Born to a Mexican mother and Jewish father, [Rosebud Ben-Oni](http://www.rosebudbenoni.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com) is a recipient of the 2014 NYFA Fellowship in Poetry and a CantoMundo Fellow. She was a Rackham Merit Fellow at the University of Michigan, and a Horace Goldsmith Scholar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is the author of *SOLECISM* (Virtual Artists Collective, 2013) and an Editorial Advisor for VIDA: Women in Literary Arts (vidaweb.org). Her work appears in *POETRY, The* *American Poetry Review, Arts & Letters, Bayou, Puerto del Sol*, among others. Find out more about her at [7TrainLove.org](http://www.rosebudbenoni.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com).