The Salmon and the Jackal

M. Andre Vancrown

I had a thought—  

If I was Right and you were Wrong,  

then I'd be slight,  

and you'd be long. You'd be  

a one-eyed pirate in a hook-handed shanty  

town brawl, and I'd   

be a ... bawdy-belted bard's sing-a-long  

saucy drinking song.  

But that's not all.  

You see—  

Truth is a task master that shackles  

its jackals skull to snout, chains them  

all list to leeward, like rowers  

on quaint little slave ships, sets  

them all to rowing  

in taut, dizzying circles, sits trollish  

at the fore, beating slow  

its one-armed,  

thigh-boned cadences.  

Squinting, hard, and watching all.   

Whereas—  

Fiction is a salmon that swims backwards  

as he slams skyward, fishtailing wind-wise, fins  

and silver sails flapping as he trips a breeze,  

balloons into a nickel-backed zeppelin,  

zooms, plunges past orbit and sets the moon  

to spinning on its axis, then dives  

fast, shedding a banana peel stream  

of diamond  

skittered frisbees, that vanish ...  

Like sun showers into endless seas.