Lousy Metaphors That Don’t Even Rhyme

By Richard LeDue

My friend used to live by a graveyard,
next to a beach, 
and one summer evening, 
I wrote rhyming couplets 
sitting in the sand, 
afraid to let the strands fall 
through my fingers 
because it was a lousy metaphor, 
and I hated getting my hands dirty
another lousy metaphor, 
while my friends swam, 
tombstones eyed us 
like one watches a stone skip
water until it sinks, 
but I was most concerned with my
poem, rhyming “sky” and “high,” 
as if I had invented immortality, 
only to end up years later, 
examining how my dry hands 
cracked like regrets.

Richard LeDue (he/him) currently lives in Norway House, Manitoba with his wife and son. He is a Best of the Net nominee, and has been published in various places throughout 2021. His first chapbook was released in 2020, and a second chapbook in 2021. As well, his third chapbook, “The Kind of Noise Worth Writing Down,” is forthcoming in early 2022 from Kelsay Books.