KNIVES AND OTHER STORIES
That oxymoron: the butter knife.
-- Susan Sontag, "In Memory of Their Feelings", 1989
1.
Keep the stress point where it falls: keep the pressure on the
Inverse spot. Don't turn the blade. A knife's a lesson asking learning;
The quickest, sharpest, literal point. (Self-evidence, and reflex.) You
Can feel the blade at your own neck? The skin and scales: a gleaming fat, messy and
Heavier still-- this flesh was once alive. This flesh once turned and squealed,
Emptied food troughs or picked delicately at its ruff of feathers. You see it's
Not enough. You see the answer. The knife presses into the soft skin just beneath your jaw.
2.
Let the music wind down. You knot your hair. The call comes at the door: they're
Eaten and entire. There's no room for face mask, sold silk, something that's not yours.
Spoon music. Butter knives. Oh let's not count the breath that's lost: the dessert forks
Shining, the napkins clean, the table set. Moving forward through the doorway.
Opening and carrying, servants' cake and buckets full of moss. Business dinner.
Neat and knocked against yourself. The thought shifts and congeals-- the dinner's cooling.
Sweetbread and kisses; send for more water. What's another word for loss?