I never knew what caused the raging fire--

Only, whoever started it was cloaked

By something more than blankness, like the kiss

Of gasoline on wood, on flesh, the spit

Of tiny, licking flame, thrust high then far.  

Dangle a challenge to write a poem involving five words, and a sixth begs to follow, and the whole lot just wants to be a sestina. It would be a real challenge to fit these five words, plus a sixth, into this complicated but ultimately liberating form.

I wrote the first five lines, in iambic pentameter of course (because it just makes me sound so darn good):

• a-fire
• b-cloak
• c-kiss
• d-spit
• e-far
• f-[?]

If I went on, I'd add that sixth word, then five more stanzas, patterned like this:

• faebdc
• cfdabe
• ecbfad
• deacfb
• bdfeca

And the "envoi," a final three lines with these three terminal words:

• eca

 Paul Fussell, Jr., author of Poetic Meter and Poetic Form, says the sestina is "of dubious expressive value in English."

• But see Elizabeth Bishop's "Sestina."
• Or Miller William's "The Lonesome Shrinking Sestina."

And you'll see just how wrong he is.