Boy Scout Knife

 

Boy Scout Knife

I open a drawer and am face to face
with a mama packrat who leaps to the floor,
three newborns clinging to teats, flop-flop-flop.
Drags them to a hole. And gone.

Beneath the nest sits my old pocketknife
now rusted, soaked in life’s liquids. Wrecked.
My son says “I want it.”
I say “It’s ruined.”
He says “I’ll fix it.”
“What will you do with it?”
“Cut things.”
“What things?”
“Things.’
For the inexplicable, he needs.
As once did I.

He scrubs with steel wool, oil.
I demonstrate the whetstone. How to hold, fold.
The blade is pitted, black, but sharp.
A six-year-old with a bulging pocket,
a need fulfilled, an edge that kills.

Mama rat, may your babes survive.
Thrive. My son, non-scout, gentle soul,
grows tall. Uses the knife
for nothing at all.

…..

First published in Freshwater