artwork: unknown chinese ceramist
Metaphors
by Anneliese Finke
I’m beginning to think that they’ve all
been
used before. The fireworks of the
neurons
that fire in your brain, the hands
that
flutter like wings and crack like bark,
even
the stars that shine in your eyes.
Everything
new is ridiculous. Should I say,
your
hands are flapping like carp
drowning
when someone reaches down
to
pull them into the air? That the fine
lines
on
them are like tin foil that, once used,
can
never be smoothed out again? Maybe
these
metaphors work, somehow, maybe
they’re
just nonsense, your eyes are like
the
power indicator on my tv antenna.
Controlled
by a little plastic dial?
Bright
and surrounded by darkness?
Keeping
me awake at night?
It
all falls apart. There’s nothing else to
say
but
this: There is a man. He looks sad.
I saw him, lying in his white bed.
When I saw his eyes, I thought,
he must know something awful.
But after all, I am no closer to it,
I will never be any closer to him,
than this.
~
first published in Ruminate
