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*** Pauline's poem "Missing"
is one of those commended
in the National Poetry Competition,
2007 ***
published
in Watermark, Flaxbook 2 (LitFest);
and
Bloodline, Blinking Eye Publishers,
2007, ISBN
-0-9549036-8-8
Flaying Knife
Worn thin against
the grindstone;
between
times, slicked along a steel
to
keep its edge; sharp-pointed
to
slit a throat for bleeding,
incise
round a hoof, open up
a
seam down the inner thigh
of
a draught-horse or a cow.
My
uncle’s fingers, flying against time,
could
make mistakes—ruin the silk
of
a racehorse hide; his father
sliced
his wage to match the cost.
Neither
let a girl-child learn the skill.
It’s
still an unfulfilled desire
to
strip a carcass of its perfect skin.
Now,
post mortem, that knife’s mine
but
lacks its proper purpose. It rests
in
my kitchen block with carvers,
saw-edged
bread and salad cutters.
You’d
know it by its narrow blade
and
the old string round its handle,
brown
and greasy with cold sweat.
Pauline Keith
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