what I mean when I say I'm sharpening my oyster knife
by eve l. ewing
I mean I'm here to eat up all the ocean you thought was yours. I mean I brought my own quarter of a lemon, tart and full of seeds. I mean I'm a tart. I'm a bad seed. I'm a red-handled thing and if you move your eyes from me I'll cut the tender place where your fingers meet. I mean I never met a dish of horseradish I didn't like. I mean you're a twisted and ugly root and I'm the pungent, stinging firmness inside. I mean I look so good in this hat with a feather and I'm a feather and I'm the heaviest featherweight you know. I mean you can't spell anything I talk about with that sorry alphabet you have left over from yesterday. I mean when I see something dull and uneven, barnacled and ruined, I know how to get to its iridescent everything. I mean I eat them alive. what I mean is I'll eat you alive, slipping the blade in sideways, cutting nothing because the space was always there.
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"No, I do not weep at the world—I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife." –Zora Neale Hurston
via poetry society.org
