Origami

Paper Art in a San Francisco Gallery, April 2005

Origami

scissors cut paper
paper covers rock
rock breaks scissors
origami crane
many folds away
from flatness
flies above the game

in Japan children bring
their hands together
scissors paper stone
V-fingered flat balled
choki paa guu
so fast you want
to see it again

now different one loses
one wins in contrast
the slow folding
of paper to bring
dimension as poets fold
one word on another
at right angles and wrong

scissors paper rock
mother’s jagged sewing
scissors called pinking shears
the paper I cut dulled them
forming little sawteeth
she rocked me
to dull me to sleep

origami makes paper lyrics
a thousand cranes bring
luck and folded words
choki paa guu
the poet knows paper
cuts rock crumbles
and scissors fly