Starting another by Elizabeth Fowle, Elephant Trainer and Part Time Poet
A toeless foot does stamp at mine [1]
Me curls them under foot
But thou, fair snake, lacks these for sure
And canst[2] not swing thy boot
No walleye here, yet cod abound
Two countries, like two cod, [3]
No two alike.
Yet variations abound. Dark and lithe [4]
We dance our lives in jest.[5]
Our cards[6] close to our vest.
Preempted by strife[7]
In this our past life[8]
Assured that we outrank the rest.[9]
[1] Elizabeth's dream was to teach Fanny to dance the polka
[2] a mispelling of the name for the narrow channel between Cape Breton Island and the northeast mainland of Nova Scotia, Canada
[3] Referring both to the Cod Wars between the US and Canada and her split-loyalty between her Canadian mother (an elephant trainer) and her American father, a breeder of exotic mice, the natural enemy of elephants.
[4] Scholars are of two minds; lithe could refer back to the polka or could have simply been another typo. Maybe she meant 'light.' Or 'lite.' (See: Ederhardy, Todd, Mistakes that Changed Literature, Ederhady Press, 1955)
[5] Some hold that Ms. Fowle foresaw the presidency of George W.
[6] Alax, Ms. Fowle was not buxom, but was known to allow her elephants to bump those who were
[7] The Fowles, mother and son, held that one does not learn from trouble but irrevocably loses the experience that should have occurred had trouble not come
[8]Another reference to the future choices (by G.W. and others) which she claimed ruined her own life
[9] A limerick format seems to have crept in to this piece at the finish.