SHEARS AND BAYONETS

Of all the bric-a-brac collaged in her kitchen junk drawer,
I never saw chrome spear scissors she would have
Used before menopause;
Only ones with monster finger holes
To snip an inch or two of her mostly uncut hair,
Or sometimes used to crunch the sproutings on her chin
Like heavy garden shears you’d find in grandpa’s tool shed-
Those razor sharpened on an oiled flat stone suggesting
Grandma might have kept them as an heirloom
From the early years of her father’s tailor craft,
Their pommels were flattened from hammering in
The bubbles and warps
In loose floor nails’ and sometimes scratching off factory paint
When she choked them like a butcher’s knife,
When once or twice she was startled by a clack of shutters
In the middle of the night.
They were mismatched from an old assembly line
Which also forged antiquated pin point bayonets…
Those razor sharpened to slice fur and flannel collars
Of hand sewn scarves and woolen hats…
Father and Uncle Max were repelled by younger cousins
Who nicknamed them “bayonets”;
Instruments for punishing bed wetters with threats of amputation…
All this convinced me that these bulky shears
Could easily click back to life with deadly thoughts
At any time,
Like that old cat-of-nine tails
Grandmother talked about when she was young;
Curled above her head in her father’s fist
For far less serious offenses.

Ken Siegelman
Brooklyn Poet Laureate
May, 2007