New poem (Draft)

Muscle Memory

The choice has been made.
We must wear our language,
make ourselves up in it.
From the development of vocabulary
comes the anticipation of situations,
and I find myself wondering if
the mad man who walked past me
teeth chattering in insult and obscenity
would have preferred the thrust of a knife
or the image of the thrust of a knife.
Our tongues know their movements too well
to unlearn embedded choreography.
Our minds, too, grow weak in habit:
with this poem, for example,
I meant to kill you.