The Leash

“The Leash” is a single stanza of 33 unrhymed lines of free verse. It does share some characteristics with prose poetry because of the focus on storytelling, but the deliberate line breaks place it closer to the lyric.

The structure is a loose kind of concessional argument, a rhetorical strategy that “allows for different opinions and approaches toward an issue, indicating an understanding of what causes the actual debate or controversy” (“Concession.” 2022. Literary Devices). The approach is well-suited to philosophical inquiry because it encourages exploration.

The first 14 lines establish the general context of the poem’s rhetorical situation by offering a vision of a world in distress—a picture of despair. It asks, “what’s left” when the “the unsayable in each of us” (Line 5) is taken away and wonders “isn’t there still / something singing?” (Lines 13-14). The speaker offers no certainty but doesn’t lie either. She says, “The truth is: I don’t know” (Line 14).

The statement opens the second section of the investigation. “I don’t know,” it begins, “But sometimes, I swear I hear it, the wound closing,” (Line 15).