Most Helpful

By Jacquelyn Shah

I taught a caterpillar

   how to walk on stilts

deprived the lightning

   of its cataclysmic bolts

I urged that King of Fruits,

   the durian, to overripen

I ran roughshod

   over a tough-bod titan

I bestowed on various elms

   their allergy-producing pollen

and demolished all

   the angel-wings of heaven

I lectured leopards

   on the right to leap

provoked a coop

   of chicks to cheep

sailed a female whale

   to her destination wedding

and enjoined some mountaineers

   to venture backwards sledding

I told the standard rose of Texas

   to desist from being yellow

(hocus-pocusing each Texas fellow

   into something brave, unorthodox)

Endeavoring to be most helpful

   I must excel in each amazing task

that in a longed-for grandeur

   I can surely hope to bask 

Author Bio: Jacquelyn Shah has: AB–Rutgers U (magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa); MA–Drew U; MFA & PHD–U of Houston: English/creative writing. Her publications: poetry chapbook (“small fry”); poetry book (“What to Do with Red”); poems in journals; hybrid memoir (“Limited Engagement”). She was a 2023 Pushcart Prize nominee.

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