Slingshot Poem by Juan Olivarez

When I was twelve,
I bought a slingshot,
For fifty cents.

A piece of leather,
And two leather cords.

I practiced with it,
Day and night.

I never became proficient.
The stone came out early,
Or it came out late.

Walking home one day,
A dog charged me,
And would have bitten me severely.

But I had my slingshot.
And I swung it over my head.

Round and round,
It went.

Somehow the slingshot,
Loaded with a stone,
Hit the dog full in the face,

And it never left,
The slingshot.

The dog ran off,
Yelping to beat the band,
I had won.

And yet I did,
Everything wrong.

Life is so strange,
Sometimes, the weakest of us,
win.

10/19/10 Alton Texas