What is this you are making, alfie?
Some say it's a sleight
of hand you wear out
on your sleeve. Others,
a secreted shell
to keep within, spiral-
ing, or with a hard
blow, herald, a crow. Yet
others, a muscle
that you flex to make
strong perhaps, more
quick to adapt. Or a caper
of rhyme, of herrings read,
to puzzle a riddle, literarily
device a trap. Or a game
in hand, stone crushing
scissors, fist penned
in paper. I make it spawn,
a salmon, willing it-
self upstream to lay
down at the root
of it all, yielding ocean
to earth, so mighty sequoia
forests may
forever stand tall.
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