Don't confuse similes with metaphors. 'The snake moved like a ripple on a pond.' 'It was as slippery as an eel.' 'Jess is as graceful as a gazelle.' In her poem George Square, Jackie Kay describes ...

If he could, he’d say: From light to light the night-bound day’s impassioned traffic beats a strung-out simile of surf’s reproof to sailor’s joy at landfall. What he said was ...