Another day, another dollar,

washing pots, preventing squalor.

Mundane tasks, day in, day out,

the meaning of life, what’s it all about?

 

She takes the knife from the dishwasher rack,

and dries it slowly, stopped in her tracks,

she stops to think by the kitchen sink –

what if, what if, what if?

 

To push the knife deep in my gut,

would it slip in,  like a needle in butter

would it wrinkle, like a blunt knife tomato

or would it resist, like a half cooked potato

 

Would it be simple or would it be hard to

plunge deep the steel, its passage legato

would it feel cold or would it feel hot

should I do it, or should I not?

 

Would it induce an arterial spurt

like Pollock upon my cobwebbed wall dirt

or would it just ooze and be warm wet and sticky

would she fall to her knees looking pallid and sickly

 

The dog nudges past which jolts back to reality

and someone shouts through the closed kitchen door

‘Mum, where’s the remote for the cable TV?’

I dry up the knife and place it back in the drawer

 

What if, what if, what if?

 

© What if? 2015

by Alexandra Carr-Malcolm