The simile is contained in lines 1-2 reading, "That year we hardly slept, waking like inmates who beat on the walls." The speaker is referring to a spouse and herself. Comparing a couple to inmates seems to be an inappropriate comparison. Inmates do not experience intimacy like a married couple can. However, in this situation inmates was a qualified comparison in that the couple were unhappy together which led to the divorce. They had nothing in common except for their "matching eyes and hair," (line 16). This suggests that the relationship was merely superficial and lacked any real emotional connection which is why the marriage failed. The divorce seemed mutual as the speaker never spoke negatively of the husband and they took hands to exit the lawyer's office who was approving the divorce as stated in the concluding lines of the poem.
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