A metaphor is a comparison between essentially unlike things without an explicitly comparative wordsuch as like or as.“that red shirt,stained from sweat, the crying of the armpits" —Ai, from “Why Can’t I Leave You?"“If it were May, hydrangeas and jacarandaflowers in the streetside trees would beblooming through the smog of late spring.Wisteria in Masuda’s front yard would beshaking out the long tresses of its purple hair" —Garrett Hongo, from “Yellow Light"“if I can’t make you happy,come close between my thighsand let me laugh for you from my second mouth." —Ai, from “Why Can’t I Leave You?"“I press a button,and this black flowerwith its warped pistilbroods over me,tears dripping from a dozensilver stamens." —Duane Ackerson, from “Umbrella"“You lay there, fastened to the tracks…You waited for the thunder of wheel and bone,the axles sparking, fire in your spine." —Jay Parini, from “Coal Train"“by the black river,by mud water in which no one ever swims—time is distant music; is echoof a broken thing; yanks us muddied upfrom sleep" —Paul Guest, from “Tuscaloosa"“the softinsides of your thighs. What I wantI simply reach out and take, no delicacy now,the dark human bread I eat handfulby greedy handful. Eyes, fingers, mouths,sweet leeches of desire." —Dorianne Laux, from “This Close"“the indifferent sun, that seed-heavy sack" —Judy Jordan, from “A Short Drop to Nothing"“the white smoke of your breathrising like a ghost." —Chris Tusa, from “Coma"“It hangs deep in his robes, a delicateclapper at the center of a bell.It moves when he moves, a ghostly fish in ahalo of silver seaweed" —Sharon Olds, from “The Pope’s Penis"“full-breasted tulipsopen their pink blouses" —Brigit Pegeen Kelly, from “Doing Laundry on Sunday"“whose eyes were always coveredwith the bruised petals of her lids" —Anita Endrezze, from “The Girl who Loved the Sky"“I sleptas never before, a stoneon the riverbed" —Mary Oliver, from “Sleeping in the Forest"