Impatient Metaphors
Elena doesn’t fit in the air.
When moving, she moves in three dimensions (at once),
Her arms and legs creating new angles
As she bounds, flailing, down the dusty field,
Madly chasing a small ball
Which bounces in expected trajectories.
Elena shall not be a trope,
no symbol of rejection, she;
Her contorting elbow is synecdochial for what –
Athetoid? Her life? The stars?
She cannot be an approximation
of a person,
or of what cannot be released from sounds;
A moment without oxygen
Is not a moment without inspiration;
She can’t be crushed by metonymy,
a life in the domain of the poems;
Elena finally grabs the small ball and,
Laughing, hurls it on to chase it again.