Billy Collins

I read a book of your poetry last night,
as the world around me grew dim.
I slowly turned the pages and smiled at the windows
in your words, the way they took me to a room
with vases of flowers, and to a place
where all the versions of myself exist at once.
I saw bits of myself in every stanza,
in every metaphor that draws you in
then carefully sets you back next to a bowl of pears.
I saw my strong self and my fragile self
in your poetry-
I saw the part of me that aches
to write everything, to somehow capture
all the words that are alive, to feel
the solid weight of them in my hand.
Sometimes when I’m writing I feel desperate,
like I’m not moving fast enough,
like all these phrases will drift away
if I don’t lift my hand out fast enough to catch them.
It’s like walking in reverse,
or falling down Alice’s rabbit hole.
The unbreakable darkness that surrounds me,
unforgiving but not unkind,
the only way
to let poetry fall from my body,
to let it escape and wave goodbye, to let it
calmly watch as I imagine throwing my typewriter
against the wall,
destructive but not monstrous.
In your words I saw my desperation,
and I saw how badly I want to write how you write,
looking out a window with a cup of coffee,
watching as the world walks by.