8/9/2019 Poetry-Letter to the Metaphor

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Letter to the Metaphor

Petra Magno

Be not mad at me, boy with the chipped grin, unshaven chin,

single waterlily, lotus flower, unkissed toad, mud puddle.

When will you forgive me, cellar door, garden salad?

I apologize to you, lions mane, tigers pride, swans neck.

Smile upon me and appear at my gate again.

Let me kiss the feathers, the fur, the teeth.

Happy is the book closest to the bookend, filled with the false belief

that he is the one who, tireless, holds his brothers up;

happy is the ignorance of standing in line.

So when will you return to me, lonely journey, sole traveller,

rag and bone peddler dragging his feet? When will you tireof your silence, you formed by Rodin, lit by Vermeer?

The world fractures and then you are also the laden table, the lazy eye.

You are my philosophy teacher being wheeled through the rain.

You remain the witty remark, the turn of phrase, the long line.

Happy is the broken mirror that, upon waking, finds itself changed

from Cyclops to Argus, manyeyed monster, thesaurus of light,

failed prism, your face in a thousand angles.

O my only deus ex machina, my silly non sequitur, I miss you

a capite ad calcem; the pain translates itself as it ages,

and I find that I am calling to you using the wrong names.

But so happy is the wave breaking on the shore, happy to be

subdivided into innumerable embraces, the better to hold

each sand grain tighter to itself.