I Wish I'd Written This

I love a good metaphor.  Read this poem for an excellent example of the use of metaphor.  She just cuts off a soft pat, spreads it around, and lets it melt into the nooks and crannies of the page. 

 

Butter

By Connie Wanek

Butter, like love,

seems common enough

yet has so many imitators.

I held a brick of it, heavy and cool,

and glimpsed what seemed like skin

beneath a corner of its wrap;

the décolletage revealed

a most attractive fat!

And most refined.

Not milk, not cream,

not even crème de la crème.

It was a delicacy which assured me

that bliss follows agitation,

that even pasture daisies

through the alchemy of four stomachs

may grace a king's table.

We have a yellow bowl near the toaster

where summer's butter grows

soft and sentimental.

We love it better for its weeping,

its nostalgia for buckets and churns

and deep stone wells,

for the press of a wooden butter mold

shaped like a swollen heart.

 

Source: Poetry (February 2000).

Click on the title to go to poetryfoundation.org's posting of Butter.  Click on the poet's name to learn more about Connie Wanek.