68 Days: Simile

I wrote this poem for my Fundamentals of Literary Criticism class. We've been talking about figurative language, and one of the things we were assigned to do was to write our own poem that used an extended simile as its basis. We all had the same topic, too: "When I'm at work, I am as . . . "

Anyway, here's my poem. And I tried to use some of the weirder tools of poetry (adding accents to words, removing syllables from words, that sort of thing) so if it doesn't work, that's only to be expected. Also, I'm too haggard to really think straight, so . . .



Simile

When I am at work, I am as
A crumpled, uséd groc'ry bag.
I tumble on a gust of wind;
Without deciding, I come in.
I move always unconsciously,
But still they find a use for me:
They fill me up and plot the course
(I'm empty without outside force).
And when the work is done, I'm then
Discarded on the road again.
I tumble on without a care.
It's as if I were never there.

- Jessica Grosland
Poems in 10 Minutes Inc.