-- for Sheryl Scanlon --
Our tropes accumulate in the crannies of thought.
They fall from each other in wordy spools.
We neglect to care for many tropes we have bought
and fess up to tropes committed by other fools.
Our tropes indeed become our very tools!
That trope is hemmed. On this one the collar is loose.
A single trope can lord it over the others,
who suffer at its hands severe abuse.
Trope Joseph takes revenge on his elder brothers,
who are later saved by trope Jesus on the cross.
Yes, tropes are masters of their own affairs,
generating tropic cycles of gain and loss.
They build their tower to Heaven then raze the stairs.
You can bake some tropes of your own, I hope!
On each of these fifteen shelves I’ve placed a trope.