The butcher knife was there
on the table my father made.
The hatchet was on the stair;
I knew where it was.

Hot wires burned in the wall,
all the nails pointed in.
At the sound of my mother’s call
I knew it was the time.

When she threatened I hid in the yard.
Policemen would come for me.
It was dark; waiting was hard.
There was something I had to win.

After my mother wept
I forgot where the hatchet was:
there was a truce we kept—
we both chose real things.

If she taunted, I grew still.
If she faltered, I lowered the knife.
I did not have to kill.
Time had made me stronger.

I won before too late,
and—adult before she died—
I had traveled from love to hate,
and partway back again.

Now all I have, my life,
—strange—comes partly from this:
I thought about a knife
when I learned that great word—“Choose.”