M O T H E R 'S   S C I S S O R S

They were
her good scissors,
her quilting knives,
her shiny
silver knuckles,
so sharp
she said
they’d cut freckles
off a little girl’s
face, split green into
two colors, slip
through the wall between
her room
and mine
without a slice
of evidence,
and that was why,
I must
never,
never touch.

And when I did,
when I touched them,
after the screen-door
whacked the house rid of her,
when I slid my fingers
into them,
the handles,
the cold weight
in my palm, and
I lifted them,
light glinting
off the blades
like a siren, when
I opened the
swords to the air
above my head,
when I cut,
when I cut,
I thought
I heard a scream.

I slid them
back into her drawer,
prayed hard for
the room to stay
together. And
when I opened my eyes,
nothing had changed.
The paint on the wall,
one color, the room
one piece, but I
must have slit
a little hole
somewhere
because air
rushed in
from a place
fresh and
dangerous