My Mother Demonstrates How to Coil a Rope

Pick an end.  Lay it across the U
between thumb and forefinger.  Make a fist.

Crook your arm to a capital L
like Rosie the Riveter.  Run the rope

under your elbow, back up to the U
loop after loop after loop after loop

A spiral.  Squeeze the midriff:
a figure 8 or a fat infinity.  Lastly,

with a few turns of the final foot
cinch it tight and tie it off

with two half-hitches.  Behold her,
coiler of rope, vaunting her victory.

Give her a hand, ladies and gentlemen,
my poor entangled long-ago mother.