The Rules   The rules of writing expressly forbid those too-perfect metaphors, but real life keeps serving them up anyway — the kid marooned on the merry-go-round, the knife left rusting on a windowsill, the ill- fitting tuxedo on a fraudulent president beside a real queen, the stillborn child of a refugee. Sentiment is also strictly verboten despite the feelings we live for and hunger for — the worst thing is to be corny or trite. So how to write about the kicked-in door of a kindergarten, or the sad, slow cadences of a dulcimer at nine a.m. to cheer a dying woman though the road she lives on has a DEAD END sign?     © Michael Fleming Brattleboro, Vermont October 2019