poetry book
I ask them
to take a poem
and hold it
up to the light
like a color
slide
or press an
ear against its hive.
I say drop a
mouse into a poem
and watch
him probe his way out,
or walk inside
the poem's room
and feel the
walls for a light switch.
I want them
to waterski
across the
surface of a poem
waving at
the author's name on the shore.
But all they
want to do
is tie the
poem to a chair with rope
and torture
a confession out of it.
They begin
beating it with a hose
to find out
what it really means.
—Billy
Collins