[…] there are many other things I have found myself saying about poetry, but the chiefest of these is that it is metaphor, saying one thing and meaning another, saying one thing in terms of another, the pleasure of ulteriority.

—Robert Frost

How to say this? I’m caked in the filth of my father’s secrets. When I say caked, I mean dreaming. When I say filth, I mean dirt. When I say secrets, I mean wounds. Yes. I am dreaming in the dirt of my father’s wounds. When I say dreaming, I mean dreaming. I mean the night is long. I mean this bed a blade. When I say dirt, I mean a funeral. I mean the kind piled on. When I say wounds, I mean his mother murdered. Yes. I am dreaming. When I say dreaming, I mean waking. I mean held down by hands. When I say the night is long, I mean generations. I mean the trauma of time hunching at the foot of the bed. When I say this bed is a blade, I mean anything that aches away from its edge. When I say a funeral, I mean death will demand a ceremony. When I say piled on, I mean death will demand a ceremony. I mean grief. I mean the way grief beckons a breathing body. I mean hands. I mean a mouth. When I say his mother murdered there is nothing else to say. 

—Christopher Shipman

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