Hobble Creek Review
Hobble Creek Review
Peggy Shumaker
A BARLOW POCKET KNIFE AND THE CONCEPT
OF PERFECTION
    

an ars poetica

         ~for Bill Kloefkorn


To this day, I'm not sure how
you accomplished it, whittling away
on a wienie-roasting stick

out back at Cedar Breaks.
Kept sharp, your good Barlow
(worthy for showing off,

though you hardly ever did
more than four or five times)
sliced right past the nuance

you intended, missed the point
entirely and whittled instead
below the rolled-up sleeve

of your oft-washed
and therefore soft
blue work shirt

this living flesh--sparsely-haired
tender underside
of your forearm.

One muscle twitched.
As if in contemplation
of this particular and bleeding

instance of life's many and
inexhaustible mysteries,
you regarded what spurted

from your insulted artery--
rhythmic whoosh whoosh whoosh
of some ratchety old sprinkler set off.

Hope it was clean, that green
dishtowel grabbed and pressed hard
to keep the better part of your V8 juice

sloshing inside you.
After the trip to get stitches
after the offer of pills

to slice the edge off
pain left behind
by your very effective bid

for every bit of our attention,
pain any unbiased on-looker
might easily describe as "self-inflicted,"

in dawdling twilight
you lingered outside,
hiked after supper

up the back slope,
hunted another handful of promise--
sticks just about almost all right,

and got started whittling.
Peggy Shumaker was fortunate to laugh often with Bill
Kloefkorn.  She can hear his voice clearly when she reads his
poems and memoirs.  He taught her more than once how to
stay alive to the moment, to be glad for one hour, to cherish
the day.