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Christina Hennemann
Observations from a Restaurant
I sit and inspect the cutlery placed before me. The engraving on the knife says utopia. That strikes me as odd. I consult the dictionary:
Utopia: noun
- often capitalized: a place of ideal perfection especially in laws, government,
and social conditions
- an impractical scheme for social improvement
- an imaginary and indefinitely remote place
Etymology
Utopia, imaginary and ideal country in Utopia (1516) by Sir Thomas More, from Greek ou not, no + topos place
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The main course interrupts my research. Utopia strips chunks of meat from chicken wings, baring bone by bone. Have you ever seen a skeleton fly?
The animal’s flesh goes no place, or a remote place.
Utopia sleeps on my serviette, greasy with greed, but of course it’s not really there, it must all be a figment of my imagination.
No, this is a knife. What is a knife?
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Knife: noun
1. a) a cutting instrument consisting of a sharp blade fastened to a handle
b) a weapon or tool resembling a knife
2. a sharp cutting blade or tool in a machine
verb
- to use a knife on, specifically: to stab, slash, or wound with a knife
- to cut, mark, or spread with a knife
- to try to defeat by underhanded means
- to move like a knife in, example: birds knifing the autumn sky
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If birds knife the sky, and utopia knifes the bird, then I guess it all makes perfect sense, don’t you think?
The waiter takes the knife, Utopia, away.
My tummy rumbles and mumbles on.
Outside, a swarm of starlings race towards a fireball— together, they sink into the sea.
Christina Hennemann is a poet and prose writer based in Ireland. She’s a recipient of the Irish Arts Council’s Agility Award ’23 and she was longlisted in the National Poetry Competition. Her work is forthcoming or appears in Poetry Wales, The Iowa Review, Skylight 47, The Moth, York Literary Review, fifth wheel, Ink Sweat & Tears, Moria and elsewhere. www.christinahennemann.com
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