Straight Razor

He slid the stiff blade up to my ear:

Oh, fear,

this should have been thirst, a cheapening act.

But I lacked,

as usual, the crucial disbelief. Sticky, cold,

a billfold

wet in my mouth, wrists bound by his belt,

I felt

like the boy in a briny night pool, he who found

the drowned

body, yet still somehow swam with an unknown joy.

That boy.