What tender offerings must I use
to coax a recalcitrant muse?
I’ll lay them out upon my desk,
arranged in rows (so picturesque):
my favourite pens in blue and black,
a rubber stamp, a pin, a tack;
some pebbles stolen from a beach,
a flowered mug, an unripe peach,
a stack of coins – are these enough
for sprouting verses off the cuff?
Perhaps the muse would rather find
I’d left some stranger things behind:
a vial of tears, a withered bone,
the last breath of a wizened crone,
a moonbeam trapped inside a jar,
a neutron from a dying star –
or just this list, a simple ruse
that nonetheless has caught my muse!