print previewback KATHLEEN WINTER
Bystanders
His knives were swift
as were his wives.
The drawer where they were kept
was always cold.
Their feet passed briskly on the street,
we couldn’t meet
their eyes.
No word flew from one to the next
—no omen.
We marveled at his skill
in using them,
through and through and through.
On hallway walls
or posted on a pole along the road
signs say:
If you see something—
but we saw so little
as sunlight struck metal
(belt buckle, brass knuckle)
each wife slight,
shadowed in the wake of him.
Once they went in we seldom
no
we never saw them again. 