SIMILITUDE Poem by Philip Hammial

If we assume that every third house is logical
it follows that there's literature in abundance
on the subject of steamer trunks of the kind
that one might find in every fourth house. She
opens it & pulls out a dress, probably
her grandmother's, & puts it one, an arrangement
that's agreeable to both parties, so agreeable
in fact that suddenly there's something that must
be said but where are the words? - too choked up
with emotion, & the opportunity passes. It's
as though you've stopped at a red light on Sunset
Boulevard on Saturday night & the beautiful young
woman in the back seat - how did she get there? where
did she come from? - says thanks for the ride, opens
the door & vanishes into the crowd, a somewhat
farfetched simile I'm sure you'll agree, but since it
& hundreds of other equally preposterous similes
can be found in the literature far be it from me
to delete it in favour of some more down-to-earth
comparison - a simile that, however outlandish,
seems perfectly suited to a situation, this situation,
where there's sure to be someone in every fifth house
who will be prepared to argue that it perfectly conveys
what the author intended it to convey.