In the poem “she being brand” by e.e. cummings, it talks about a young man who is driving through Boston who doesn’t have much experience with driving car. The car so happens to be a metaphor for sex and possible lost of virginity for someone. At first that mans seems flusterd and unsure of what he is doing, which is the case sometimes when it comes to sexual interactions with certain males especially virgins. He then seems to be getting the hang of the car, which can be translated that he finally is getting comfortable interacting sexual with the female. Towards the end, he gets the car going faster and then brings it to a a end, which is a metaphor for the climax. You can tell this by the structure of the poem which is really unique. The way the poem is broken apart into pieces and then clumps together and speeds up faster closer to the end is a representation of the acting of having sex.
In the poem “Coming Home, Detroit, 1968” by Phillip Levine it talks about how horrible the Detroit community is during that time dealing with race relations in a racially divided a major manufacturing place at this time and how the Rouge River is a iron grey because of the run off from the Ford Rouge Factory. This poem takes on a different tonality, with different feeling and different sounds.
You make a good point that the rhythm of the e.e cummings poem mimics the rhythm of sex adding to the strength of the metaphor. the metaphor isn’t just in the words.
In the Levine poem, I think driving comes to mean going on with life despite the environmental degradation and the race riots. He writes, “you go forward to work.” This implies going forward ignoring the problems.