I worry that my generation

will be the last generation

to carry a pocketknife.

Is it an indicator?

Will today's children

learn the skill of fix-it-yourself?

What is there to fix

when restart or plug-in

does it for you? What of

carburetors and screen doors

that slam? What of wonky

washing machine motors?

And what of sticks 

that will go unwhittled?

I have my three-bladed

stockman at hand, one

of several working knives

that got me through

calving seasons and winters

cutting twine on bales of hay.

How familiar it is in my hand.

How many times

have I accessed those blades,

how many bull calves

cried mama at its touch!?

Boys, will they know the sound

of a blade that snaps shut like that!?

Will they know mumbly-peg

and the accidental slice

that sheds rich, red blood?

Girls, jump-roped and jacked,

bloused and skirted—tights in winter—

will we, the pocketknife-generation,

be the last to hold the door for you?

Riddance to quaint notions and attire

decreed by a patriarchal culture. 

Something lost, something gained.

What is lost, what is gained?

Pocketknife as symbol.

Tangible. With heft. With purpose.

What else can be held in hand

that says so much (beyond another's hand)?

And least that final image

convey one thing and not another,

Let the pocketknife-generation

be the last to see that image only one way.