The knife sharpener in the plaza With his abrasive discs of fire Grinds the steel you offer Down to its sinews.

The sparks are the spectacle You pay for, along with edged Knives that cleave clean through Anything that you want slice

Potatoes, chicken bones, bread Of wheat, of time, of memory. Outside the window, sun glares At these unchanging blues.

Summer solstice The day is endless

So is silence that is driving by, Leaving in fragments of time,

All rearview mirrors, A broken alphabet,

Using which I am miming This oft told story

Of gullibility and deceit.

It is morning in America, where I sit, wearing a cloak of mourning,

next to a packing case adorned with rusted grass; a coffin for a body, my body.

My hand holds My hand stained with finger prints of the beloved assassin’s hands.

Which airy scabbard now conceals her deception’s steel – the cause of this massacre? Is the amulet my body wears at the throat, her dagger’s handle?

In America, it is morning. In America, I am entombed in a bloodsheet.