Originally published by The Antigonish Review, Issue 193

Knives

In the fourth grade, a

history teacher let slip—

Night of the Long Knives.

You'll learn when you're older,

he said. We still clamored

for the information. He refused.

When you're older, he said.

But age did not bring with it

a predestined knowledge of how

those knives were used,

no familiarity with the untold story

like some inbuilt structure

growing in, tusk

formed from details of

a savagery. Instead, age

brought with it only

forgetfulness, at first. Long knives,

we found, were used

to pare bell peppers, mince

onions, crush garlic cloves

with their flat, broad sides, steel

matte as stucco. Long knives

were used to pull meat

out of the barbecue pit,

to cut challah bread, to test

the texture of a half-baked chicken,

upturned points of their

tips tapering like the

ski-slope noses of gentle

school-day friends.

And age brought with it—

I can't say. A thing. A bump

in the bedspread

when no one is supposed

to be in the house. A ripple

in the wallpaper that was

smooth yesterday. The upended bowl

still unturned. The story learned

tomorrow. The pit in a timeline

now left blocking

and blocked, like a slash

of purple light floating

in the world of the eye

that will not leave.

Something like this yields

a blank spot on the brain.

Please understand.

It happened. I can't say.

And so age brought with it

a locking hospital door like

a tomb's heavy slab, green

as the pale undersides

of mint leaves. And

I brought with me

armfuls of books and

a smile that said

"I am sorry

everything

is so blind and dumb.

I am sorry

life can't keep track

of us all.

At reports of forest fires,

my mother would say

‘What about all the little animals?’

and I fear

that's what you are.”

Age did not bring

us much. Our teeth came in

with the wrong wisdom

in their roots. We gathered

little. The world remained full of

crushed garlic and

hospital visits and no knowledge

of how one could find its way

to the other. Instead we know

we have learned

only one thing:

in the course of a night,

all that is really needed is

one short knife.