"You Can't Know Unless You Murder Someone" by Matthew King

A lot of things, you found, were a lot like

murdering someone. You tried very hard

for a long time to avoid murdering

anyone but then you slipped and murdered

someone. Having murdered your first person

you discovered that it wasn’t as bad

as you expected. You got over it

quickly; life went on, it didn’t really

affect you in any way. You worried

for a while what everyone else would think

but gradually you realized that no one

cared all that much; as time passed you weren’t

even sure that anyone noticed you

murdered someone.

                                 But this morning you woke

and all at once the compound walnut leaves

fell in the frost and the sunshine and now

you find that murdering someone is not

at all like murdering someone—it’s not

a thing like murdering someone, at all.

Matthew King used to teach philosophy at York University in Toronto, Canada; he now lives in what Al Purdy called "the country north of Belleville", where he tries to grow things, counts birds, takes pictures of flowers with bugs on them, and walks a rope bridge between the neighbouring mountaintops of philosophy and poetry. His photos and links to his published poems can be found at birdsandbeesandblooms.com.