1.

 

You pinch, she says her

knuckles punched in faces, cracked

with work, breathing their sentence

to me across the cold air, putting

the knife in my new

hand, it must be

new it is

shaking

and

then the crisp

exact nature

of the first cut–

onions,

blood.

 

 

2.

 

You take

on knowing

the way of this, cloth

licking ink,

water, muscle

linking nerve, heavy with

a thin

sharp edge and

its motions the song

that parts and pieces

your minutes, hours,

the deep

hard

heat of taking

from

the whole, first

one leaf then

another

another

another.

 

 

 

 

 

3.

 

The days are some sleepless

rotation, bitter

black coffee, sly dirt

dawns, cold

one at a time

pants, hot

yolk always breaking some

song always

saying its stray

words straight

into your

eyelids,

the same long hunt

for your hand’s

companion through the

racks, not this one

not this one

but this–

the right sharp

edge, the untipped

weight, forgetting

how once, it bit

you

how now

you bite

back.