Metaphors

One of Sol's summer contests: Write a poem about the process of writing poetry, three quatrains followed by a two-line envoi.

I don't know why they didn't just ask for a sonnet.

She settles on my hand. “Work on me slowly,
hold me lightly, do not clutch, I’m fragile.”
Her multi-colored wings beat gently, gently
too soft to stir the papers on my table.

She roars into the house. The windows rattle,
hailstones bouncing on the sill beside me
while she accosts me, grabs my collar, scatters
sheets across my desk and hollers: “Write me!”

She sleeps in stone, a Galatea waiting
for sculptor’s hands to realize her image
to make her visible, with artist’s patience
with lover’s hope, to free her from her cage.

No metaphors suffice, and all descriptions
are incomplete. Who writes, and who is written?