Grant Clauser

It’s not the steel or the sharpness
of it—any rough flint can make a fine

line of an edge. It’s the care you take
separating skin from muscle, lifting wood

from other wood to carve a spoon, a stake,
a cane to walk you home along rip rap.

It’s the jobs you’ve lost, the furnace finally
beaten into silence in February, every car

that let you down in the morning,
the maps that failed to get you home.

It’s what you depend on when the difference
between sharp and dull is a full belly.

It’s not about the shape the blade holds
in the sheath or folded against itself

in your pocket, it’s the shape it makes
in your hand, the shape your hand makes

holding it, how two hands form a prayer
when you lift it above your head

and strike down into bone.