Catfish Apologies

I'm a guppy.
Scoop me up in your little nylon net.
See that red?
That red's for you,
my oxygen baby,
that pulse is yours.

I'm a dog.
Put some crunchies in my bowl
and I'll eat them, every bite.
See my tail wag?
That back and forth,
my Purina princess,
that motion is for you.

I'm a parakeet,
give me a mirror and a bell,
watch me amuse myself.
Hear me singing,
"Hello, Baby!"
That's your song.

I'm a catfish,
you can catch me.
I weigh 300 pounds.
Watch me swim?
I don't think so.
I'm on the bottom of a very deep, dark river.

I'm still a catfish in a river and
I see the other pets.
I wish you'd drop your line into this deep, dark water
and let me eat it up.
I would crawl into your rotten rowboat.
We could get our picture taken together.

Mythic Ambidexterity

The kind of mirrored skills
A precious proficiency for literature and film
Though not found in nature
One hand writing
The other hand writing
All different messages
Or maybe the same
Or maybe reversed
Or maybe one hand rolls a cigarette
And the other does needlepoint
Or maybe one hand writes a novel
While the other does the dishes.

A young musician chops his mother’s vegetables in a steady 4/4 beat
But he taps out a crazy 3/7 with his feet and the whole thing sounds so funny to him.

A fisherman turns a bowline knot one-handed
And keeps baiting hooks with the other and he don’t even notice.

A majorette rotates through her cartwheel
While her baton just keeps on spinning and won’t ever stop.

Walking down the sidewalk with Carl and
we are watching for fossils in the cement
And I’m rubbing the back of my neck at the same time as
I’m tracing a trilobite’s outline in my pocket.