Daddy Asks if You Want a Pink or Red Swiss Army Knife by Brianna Corley

In the South babies go googoo gaga switch blade knife. Here, where most advert their eyes from the dying people twisting upwards to sing discount cigarette smoke-ringed hallelujahs, you are one of many whose flower-bud hands have been forced open to receive the gift of a slick metal falling-star blade. You are still tiny and frightened but now you are ready for anything and everything with a pop-up butterfly-shaped edge so sharp it is perfect for preparing young squirrels for stove-top sacrifice, so sharp that you must shake the ready mouth upwards and then force the bite back down with a button and never touch the blade. Though sometimes you do. In the South, you are given your first knife when you still have to climb the cabinet tops to reach the mason jars filled with your mawmaw’s mayhaw jelly. It’s only after you have made car loops around the three towns that create infinity until you throw up the cosmos that you decide which way you’ll point it. ◆