I pick up scissors to cut paper and I wager
	that I could cut without trouble, yes but
	these scissors are hindering my efforts to make
	the slightest split in the sheet
	unable to create even the smallest sliver, only a crease
	imprinted.
	In slots for fingers and thumb I open and close
	they tell me what to do, these scissors
	not much instruction, obvious function
	ignorant or naïve I could figure
	how to work this tool, any fool
	could perceive
	its disposition, its essence and history, its creator's genius
	its wordly role, its horizon, its correlation with
	other things, its being ambulatory to accomplish without fuss
	simple tasks ... like cutting.
	I can only concede, unable to achieve what a child can do in sleep
	without closure or resolve to the problem
	I have set before me to procure with
	prior expectations, prophetic revelations
	I would succeed as matter-of-factly as
	the sun evaporating the moisture of summer morning.
	But alas, I feel a forlorning
	a uselessness that resides in myself, bitter
	weakness to work this uncooperative scissor.
Copyright 1996 John Feissel. All rights reserved.