Opinion

It was a lean-to one could live in 
so long as it never rained. It was 

a grain of salt close up, looking 
like a crystal, growing from itself 

like an outcrop of land. It was a sail 
opened in a storm. A memory lost. 

A coin tossed at the wrong time, 
declaring heads or tails. It had the air 

of an aristocrat or the stench of a skunk. 
No matter who bred it, it couldn’t be fair. 

It wasn’t a buoy. It kept no one up. 
It had the metallic notice of a gong. 

It was a thoroughbred raced too soon, 
or a setting moon, or a button lost or 

undone. It only had one track and 
when it sped up it was sure to derail. 

It had a smile for a satellite 
or a smirk for a son. Everyone 

thought they recognized its face, 
but, one by one, they were wrong.