Cut Once

Cut Once

Pick up your saws, your scissors, your swords,
for today we cut.

Decisions are incisions. Moving forward and
pulling away from.

The painter’s tape is hugging the woodwork,
a bandage, blue frosting.

Paint on the brush, brush on the wall. Go.
Pound the hammer

like a gavel, put the nail inside the plaster.
This pomegranate,

this avocado, this pineapple. Slice it in half
and eat. You won’t

get it wrong, you can’t. Order the entree that
you cannot pronounce.

Out with the stitches. Send it. Call them. Ask
for the thing you want

most, you know you want to. Admit it. Say
what you did not say

even if you say it to the dog, to yourself alone
in the car, driving.