Let’s say there’s a thing, but it is not
the thing, or so they say. Instead,
it’s another thing, like how a hat conceals
a head, or how one train can hide
another, a different train, as the poet said.

The question is, which of them do you feel?
In metaphor, it’s easy: you’d feel hat,
not head, if you reached up to touch
the thing, unless it were a hat
like truckers wear, with holes to let it breathe.
Then you might feel some hair, as it’s beneath.

But metaphor’s not fact, it’s not the thing
(is that too on the nose?) so how’s it feel?
Can we describe it without other things
which it is not? Or is a metaphor
the thing that cannot stand alone, but leans
on other meanings, like (what else) a hat?
Could it be as simple as all that?