The Knife Thrower

All my broken geometry
has just sat down beside me on the shore.

To my right, cracking sunflower seeds, sat
the policeman who wasn’t waiting for the ship.

There’s no ship tonight anyway.
I helped myself to some seeds.

We’ll wait. Dragging her feet, a woman
shuffled up. And started telling.

About Spain and the knife throwers.
About the eighteen who still throw in our day.

Blindfolded. Among them
she was the only woman. She showed me, make-believe.

The knife seemed to be right there in her hand.
I believed it and was carried off to a show.

And a young girl came to stand beside her.
They’d been partners, she said. With the knives.

And that trust matters very much.
Perhaps it’s youth that makes her think so.

And the other one measured me with a look —
my voice, she said, was like her husband’s voice.

The ship was sailing toward us.