What Would Billy Collins Say

 

while sitting in my easy chair feeling deliciously omnipotent

as the teapot howls through the wide-eyed windows looking

out to the humanly unfelt decibels while the awakened street

cats breathe the steamy jasmine prowling their territory?

​

Depending on the decadence of the decade perhaps he’d

light a cigarette or candle, astute to the rising swirl of heat

making its way like a corkscrew through the complicit air

as if it was an old lover mustering mojo in the after hours.

 

I imagine Billy would recline with my soon to be favorite

chipped cup of the American wild west, lift the sundown,

sip the last rain and after it fell from his armchair, he’d

smile, say don’t hurry and then we’d watch for a moment

 

as the broken-hearted cup’s desert flowers creep into bloom.