The curator surmises that the knife on the

shelf was used to cultivate the land. Maybe he

was right. Maybe the sharp edge of its slim, curved spine

was not the shape of a neck, but a small shovel

to crease the earth. I want to say: the blade is a

tip and a tongue. It has said many names for a

last time. Sliced through the sinews of lineages.

What comes from the land returns to it in pieces.

The knife was not a weapon, but an instrument

singing of beginnings and endings—humming a

centuries-old song in languages that could not

tame the bodies in the graveyards it created.