From P.F.S. Post

MEMOIR

I willed the knife to hit the mark and it did,
sometimes at the point, and stuck. Practice led
to skill, until my eyes were covered with a handker-
chief and my beloved straddled a wheel
for all to see as I threw at her but hit
the space between her legs, beside her head,
beneath her arms. This was it, all
or nothing: my life and hers in a perfect art,
where every night she was reprieved for having
lived, and I was kissed as she was freed,
as part of the act that traveled the country and built
my fame as the man who misses with perfect aim.

© Chard deNiord 2007