CROSS-EXAMINATION

Byron De La Beckwith

What good would it do to own a whole orchard

and not make preserves out of the fruit?

Any fool with money and a passion for guns

is at most, a collector. Only a marksman like me

could truly own a rifle like that or any gun.

Owning a gun is like driving a fast car.

Hell, it’s like raising prize cocks. You gotta keep

’em healthy and mean. You gotta let ’em out

of they cage sometimes and rev the engines

just to see ’em strut. Now, I ain’t saying I did it,

that’s for the state to prove, but you gotta be a fool

to own a car and not know how fast it’ll go.

And whatever I am, I ain’t no fool.