Bayonets

My love bought me a civil war bayonet blade for my birthday last year, because he knows how I love knives. I totally failed his birthday, bought him roller-coaster-park tix bc he liked them when he was little but his now-bloated organs can't take them. Anyway, he won the birthday present contest, and I was just sitting holding this bayonet blade and realized that it fits in the hand very naturally. I held it and and felt it and thought and realized - that "fit" is from use - this sheath had been gripped so tightly by so many hands that there are grooves where your fingers now just slide into place when you hold it. Some man - or so many men - squeezed this particular blade's sheath with such strength or emotion or strength of emotion that now, when I hold it, grabbing the sheath and yanking out the blade feels natural.