If I Could
Write Like Billy Collins
I would direct you to that lampshade
made of human skin and tell you
to concentrate on the warm glow
and forget the camps. The great gray moth
that swallows cartoons and leaves
a mind empty as a nest cannot smear
his dust on this glass, this perfect glass,
transparent cylinder. And the ring it leaves
on the walnut cadenza reminds me
of that great poem by Henry Vaughan,
"The World" as a great ring, the rings
we toss at cones as children, thinking
of mating perhaps, but not in that way...
and the yellow hopscotch squares now broken,
and the tetherball chains clank sadly;
All the balls have fallen, fallen,
there is nothing left to swing -- just a ring,
this perfect glass, that great poem.
