Carolyn Forche Writes Billy Collins

The cabin attendant has noticed
that I can't open my miniature
bottle of vodka. The surface
of her smile says that she

would like to help, but
I have seen much the same
smile on other Chilean women
in the service of men.

It is a smile born of mud
and tin but worn like
Victoria's Secret.
She now sees the lid

come free in my fingers
and she turns to her
other duties: a mother
who needs a pillow for

her child, a business man
who needs a refill for
his coffee, a young couple
who both want another

packet of peanuts. Below us
pass the juntas, the bloody rivers
of her country that no smile
could conceal from my own.

Jim Harrison Writes Billy Collins

Peeling an onion in my kitchen,
I'm taken by the way the birds
just beyond this window

blur into each other's names
and become gods of time and place--
the finch in the bush behind

that Italian model in Paris,
the swallow I found still alive
on the concrete of the L.A. River

and that hurt girl who wanted
to take it home with her.
Now that I'm finished

with the onion, I see
more clearly that each
bird has its own god

because here in New York,
even in a garden illuminated
by April, this is a necessity.

Dr. Suess Writes Billy Collins

Suess Writes Collins

I surveyed what dogs were traversing my lawn
From the old wooden deck chair that I sat on.
Some dogs were fuzzy.
Some dogs were not.
Some dogs had noticed the biscuit I'd brought,
So I thought and I thought and I thought and I thought
Whether to offer that biscuit I'd brought
To the fuzzy dogs first
And then to the not
So fuzzy ones who had all started to trot
Toward me, their noses all sleek in the air.
They snuffled and huffed,
They puffed and they ruffled
Like readers for meanings
Or pigs after truffles--
As if they all knew what I had in my duffle.
More biscuits, you think as you guess the next line,
But no it's not biscuits,
Nor tiskets nor taskets,
And now that you ask, it's
just poems.

Mary Oliver Writes Billy Collins

Mary Oliver Writes Billy Collins

Perhaps you've noticed how dark
this pool has become, how it
makes these cattails look

like silly flags the frogs
ran up to surrender
their evening voices?

I'm asking you this question
in my notebook, though
I don't even know

who you are
or how you came upon
this pool with

its darkness,
its frogs, its flags
of surrender.