I Find a Bullet Where it Didn’t Belong by Dick Westheimer
"It happened again: a masked man..."
I Find a Bullet Where it Didn’t Belong
You ask us for peace, we get shot in the face
—Minnesota Governor Tim Walz
It happened again:
a masked man
loses a bullet
in another man’s head.
It’s so careless to misplace
something so small
it contains two
Americas inside.
They say the bullet
will never be found.
But we all know
where it is. I discovered
a shard embedded
in my grandson who
won’t go upstairs
to the bathroom alone.
A classmate was taken
from school by a man
in olive drabs wearing a mask.
I excavate another fragment
the shape of a boy
in a blue bunny hat
from my arm.
A third I found in comments
under a YouTube video. The fucker
had it coming, it said.
He meant the head.
The blood of a man
stains the icy streets of another US city.
On TV, a cad in military dress greens—
whose sidearm is sheathed
in a spit-shined leather holster—
says the bullet won’t
be missed.
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This poem feels like someone quietly admitting how violence never really leaves the places it touches. The idea of a bullet being “lost” hits hard, because the poem shows exactly where it ends up in fear, in kids who won’t go upstairs alone, in the way people talk when they forget someone died. What struck me most was how ordinary the images are: a grandson, a classmate, a YouTube comment. It makes the damage feel close, not abstract. The “two Americas” inside a bullet is a line that stays with you long after reading. There’s a tired sadness in the voice, like someone who’s seen this happen too many times. And the contrast between real people hurting and officials brushing it off is honestly chilling. By the end, you’re left with this heavy sense that nothing about this is accidental the fragments keep finding new places to lodge themselves. It’s a quiet poem, but it leaves a mark.
This is wonderful, and so heartbreaking. Thank you so much for writing.