The knife may forget but not the wood.*

ill pay anything
    to get the feeling back
        of when i was three
sitting in the back seat of a cab
    looking out towards a game parlour
        my dad sitting next to me
—us not touching—
    explaining the laws of pinball
        to the back of my head

the world was large then
    i habitually refused to eat
        the glazed decorative
cherry on top of my sundaes

sometimes i get the feeling back
    for free
        when walking out of a mall
i see the unfinished summit
    of a skyscraper
        how the steel skeletons,
the still crane like a giant watchmen,
    the workmen with their chests of white light,
        how they never tire
of building up

largesse out of life.

* nepali proverb.