Wordfail

As carelessly I stretched and reached

to grasp a metaphor,

the ladder I’d invested with my faith

betrayed it’s nature-

not a simple noun,

as I’d assumed, but

masquerading adjective,

lad, ladder, laddest

so in laddishness deposited

my poor sore self

and as I fell the metaphor,

dislodged, came flapping,

falling with me,

in descent

and disarray.

I lay

a supine, spavined, broken poet,

the metaphor, elusive still,

flitting just beyond 

my reach, like a

falling, flapping,

flitting 

thing.