Trimming the Fat off the Future

There’s a miniature knife to watch for.
If you’re in a fantasy mood, you could
Aver that it’s a baby dragon’s tooth.

Thanks to more advanced offensive weapons
And tools for devastating explosions,
Rulers and scientists don’t use the tooth

For carving into the world anymore,
Although it’s sometimes used in rituals
Of inaugurals, prize ceremonies,

Formal investitures, those sorts of things.
Like a quill pen or a porcelain pestle,
The knife has reached the unnecessary

Without losing its functionality.
You could still write with a quill, mash your own
Pill prescriptions with a small pestle, carve

Apart the delicate flesh of the world
With your baby dragon’s tooth—how precious.
The only way to bring technology

Back to living, dangerous relevance
Is to restore to it the critical,
Essential trait of a human machine—

The capacity for novel uses.
Take your miniature, pretty dagger
And apply it in some unforeseen way,

Make it the solution to a challenge
That hadn’t been dreamed when the weapon—
Knife, quill, pestle, what-have-you—was first made.

Repurpose the thing, as the cliche goes.
Have you not even noticed this moment
A serpent’s tooth carves your forecast from you?