One Hand Tied Behind the Metaphor

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One Hand Tied Behind the Metaphor

I stepped into the ring of rhetoric with one hand tied behind the metaphor—

a silk scarf of symbolism, double-knotted by my own cleverness.

The crowd loves a handicap.

They cheer for constraint like it’s moral fiber.

“Write with limitation!” they cry, from the bleachers of abundance.

So I jab with allusion, uppercut with imagery,

try to keep my balance while my free hand flails

like a windmill auditioning for relevance.

The metaphor, meanwhile, is smug.

It smells faintly of lavender and superiority.

It whispers, “Compare yourself to something bigger,”

and I do, a teaspoon fencing a thunderstorm.

I could untie it, of course.

Call things what they are.

Chair. Loss. Tuesday.

But where’s the pageantry in that?

Where’s the tasteful fog?

Instead, I dance.

Half-grace, half-gimmick.

Every sentence a compromise between muscle and mist.

And if I fall, well,

at least I’ll have something poetic to blame it on.

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This ekphrastic poem's title is the tenth line from one of my earlier poems, that poem was made up of incomplete sentences, that somehow made great titles.

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©2026 Christopher Reilley 

 

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