Today, I was supposed to write a poem in the style of Kay Ryan, whose poems tend to be short and snappy – with a lot of rhyme and sound play, yet with a deceptive simplicity about them, like proverbs or aphorisms. I missed with the rhyme, but I ran out of time.

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Make It Count

Beeves to the
cowboys were like
coal to the miner,
cargo to the trucker,
or jewels
to the jeweler.
Pilferage
for a price.
Unlike the horse,
pickaxe, truck,
or tweezers;
one’s identity
rests upon the
tools of the trade,
neither the deal
nor the gift
of the dollar
are we.

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Look both ways at process and product.
Mind the gaps between important and precious.