My father once received

from his father

a semi-automatic pistol

that could have been

a German-made Sauer M1938H

my grandfather in turn

had been given this weapon

by his brother

when he had made up his mind

to take his family

to the other side of the world

never to return home again

I have an imprecise recollection of it

as it was surrendered

in a gun amnesty

before I got to be familiar with it

before it could become a favourite toy

but I recall that it fascinated

my cowboy and Indian-obsessed mind

the solid cold construction

the weight and size too much

for my interested infant fingers

and my childish wonder

at the exotic places it had been

the exciting events

in which it was carried

the people who had been in its sights

the shots it may have fired

the sidearm was likely to have been

a trophy won by my relative

from the loot “liberated”

from dejected and defeated

Afrika Korps prisoners of war

far from the heat

and blood spill of the North African desert

and the battalions of twisted metal

burning under multitudes of stars

about the only verifiable information

available to us about this object

was that my great uncle

had caused some damage with it

to his parents’ proud new outside toilet

mistaking live ammunition for blanks

maybe the last inadvertent yippee ki-yay of his demob

maybe the final mark he made on

the country that had sent him to war