Two hundred words were wrung from me a day
until I pulled a story from my head,
and though it was an ordinary spray
of phrases, editing I tweaked a thread,
deleted fluff, reordered words and quick
discovered gold at first I thought was lead.
I mined some more – in mind I held a pick –
and came from bored to love the piece instead.

Another author’s output is his kid.
They mostly make that simple metaphor
and liken work to offspring in a glib
analogy. The simile is more
exciting, edgy, sensuous, complex:
the stories are the fancies are the sex.