Table of Contents
We swap hyperlink chatter for chain-mail clatter,
thumb-sparks peppering cheap denim with ember freckles.
No mission statement—only steel on strop or stone,
queer clang leaking from the shoebox flat like pirated midnight radio.
I skim my grin along the grinding wheel,
metal tang flooding my mouth like a bitten coin.
You answer with an axe kissing spruce,
each chip a swirl of winter kindling,
each swing muscle's rebuttal to the canon of apology.
Swords belong to Sundays—polished beside the sink:
dish suds, rainbowed film, your elbow nudging mine.
We study beveled edges and boundaries together—
keep fingers clear, keep wrists loose,
keep gossip sharp enough to julienne shame.
Daggers wedge into boot tops like a spare key taped inside the fuse box;
the metro lurches, a flash of steel where adverts used to glare,
commuters blink and blame the neon,
never clock the covenant riding our calves.
We travel light, pockets bristling with maybe.
Spears won't fit the studio,
so we lash steak-knives to broom poles with bike-tube strips,
stack them in a milk crate by the radiator—angles waiting,
warm metal scenting the air like rain on tin gutters.
Our armoury grows on the floorboards.
Risk isn't rhetoric; it nicks.
You misjudge the draw—tip snips a stray curl,
burnt hair rising like solder smoke;
I loop gauze as you laugh at the sting,
our shared breath clinking louder than any lecture on resilience.
Last spring's blade-kiss still brackets my palm,
a silent grin the steel recalls when I forget;
tonight it winks beneath dish-soap light, proof enough.
Inventory in motion, never just counted:
an awl punches fresh holes in the belt of bad news;
a boning knife fillets lies from the spine of whispers;
a crochet hook loops copper wire into trip-line lace.
Edge to edge we stand, spines aligned, steel tongues spelling breach.
Our blades keep singing, shouldering daylight through the crack.
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