What to Do with a Pocketknife; Letter to a God-daughter at Her Wedding
Gary Phillips
This is a Camillus folding knife, three inches long, two blades of hardened steel, the longer one engraved with a running stag. The knife is red, sturdy, small, with a tender weight to the hand, encased in slivers of carved ash. It was made half a century ago. It does not make a profile in a pocket or a purse.
My uncle Clyde, an alcoholic car mechanic, used to like to say whenever anyone asked him if he had a pocketknife on him Well, I got my pants on, don’t I? because a person with any sense in the redneck 1960s Southland always had a knife in their pocket.
You can slice a ripe pear with it, clean out your fingernails after working in the garden, spend an hour or two carving a resemblance of your favorite dog, fold a flower and cut through the stem to press in your green notebook or give to somebody you want to love.
You can play a game with cousins where you pull out the longer blade and throw near as you can to each other’s feet. If it sticks out of the ground you get a point. If you can make it stand up between their legs they have to turn around and throw backwards.
You can butcher a small animal with this beautiful tool, fillet fish, make tinder, bore holes in soft material, sharpen a quill, open an envelope.
Do not use as a weapon unless necessity hauls you into real danger, then stab hard into an upper thigh, and fly.
Gary Phillips is a land-based poet living in the community of Silk Hope, and the former poet laureate of Carrboro, North Carolina. He lives in a rammed earth house with his wife Ilana Dubester, who is a community activist. A child of Appalachia, Gary avidly reads poetry and Afro-Futurism, studies amphibian activities on full moon nights and tends his kitchen. His book of poetry and occasional pieces, The Boy the Brave Girls was printed in 2016 by Human Error Publishing (Wendell, Mass). His newest chapbook is titled Subjects Suitable for Poetry(Charlotte Literary Press, 2023).