Something Happened

A man took a knife
and cut me below the ribs.
I had a three-inch wound.
I've still got the scar.

I'm glad, though,
that before he sliced me
his mate had knocked me out
with a phial of good liquor.

In the hours that followed,
some realisations came.

I thought about things
I had never done,
and felt quite happy
never to have done them.

I have never, I realised,
used a gun. Never ever
taken potshots at rabbits
or my parents, or children
in a classroom, or men
in different coloured suits
under different command.

And then I realised
I'd never even touched a gun.

I thought at first
I must be self-deluded,
but it's true:

I never touched one, not even
a feather-touch with one finger
for one tenth of a second.
Old muskets in museums:
'Please do not touch'.
I never did.

Except for a toy
my mother bought me
cause I said I wanted it.

With shooter in one hand
and potato in the other,
I toted for one day,

until my pacifist father
came home from work,
gave me a quiet talk
and disarmed me for ever.

So apart from that
one single day, I've never
used or handled or touched
or been closer
than two yards to a gun.

But in those tender hours and days
after the man so kindly cut me,
another realisation came.
I understood the meaning of a wound,
a three-inch wound below the ribs,
made with a knife

or gun.

A wound. Not a gaping hole
in the abdomen, the small
intestines spilling out. Not

the tibia in smithereens,
a severed arm, a ruined hand.
Just a superficial wound.

When the enemy attacks
they don't send in detachments
of anaesthetists. They make
their three-inch, six-inch, nine-inch wounds

while you're awake; they set
you on fire with pain. I never
had any dealings with those
rough surgeons, but I thought

of all the young men who ever had;
who had even a superficial wound
to the soft flesh, while wide awake.