POCKET KNIFE

	By Ana Arzoumanian


	It's not a knife
	on cold sheets,
	angled profiles
	through the thick handle;
	promises of limits.
	With no purpose
	always damp, pulsing.
	If it were a knife
	it'd keep standing
	on what resists it.
	If it were,
	I would then clean it,
	and putting it away, would not remember.
	As knives can not remember.
	If it were,
	every time my hands are
	in that pocket,
	I would feel it say
	"here it is, now yes, oh you couldn't, but try! Try!"
	it would always repeat no matter the time, the place
	"try now, now if you can!"
	Over and over again, because it's never tired
	and smells nothing, sees nothing,
	It does not care enough,
	Oblivious to all distinctions
	As distinguishers are not,
	neither suffocate nor dizzy turn.
	It's not,
	since my hands are
	in that pocket
	and bleed not,
	wounded mortally,
	Fed without flight.
	As you don't see me gushing;
	As I'm not.
	It's not a knife,
	a guillotine,
	an axe,
	a sickle.
	It's not a dagger,
	a lance.
	Tanners would not recognise it,
	nor grinders.
	They come twice a month, they say
	"Ma'am, anything to sharpen?"
	And what could I say in response
	Since its not a penknife,
	a dirk, a scimitar,
	a sabre;
	if it were
	It would do fine for food as well.
	The baker knows, the butcher knows.
	That is good to cure
	Aware as well the doctor
	If it were a knife
	today, right now,
	if it were in my hands to  forget,
	if it were a mirror-like blade
	I would see myself as through a crevice,
	not worthy, not enough to,
	not enough.
	It's just not.
	It's what there is not.
	There's not.
	For all that's not.
	Weeping is not enough,
	because it's not a knife and 
	its pain not meant to end nor satisfy.


--
Ana Arzoumanian was born in Buenos Aires. She is a lawyer who works in
the accademic fields specializing in Holocaust and Genocide.  She has
taught a course on Holocaust and its transmission in Jerusalem in
2008. She writes mostly in Spanish.