Poems, Verse, & Flash Fiction
BILLY COLLINS
Billy Collins said poetry
is a secret that gets bigger,
that starts with a subject
and moves into a discovery.
I like the secret part because
it’s so special, and I like the
discovery part because
it’s exciting. I’ll start with
a poem about Billy Collins,
my subject. He is my secret
because I’ve never met him.
And here we are discovering
that a secret can become
a poem, all by itself.
DEADHEADING
Pick off the begonia
blossoms when they
wither on their edges.
Put them in your
basket, in your mulch.
They had their splendid
day. The little plant
makes its own new life,
pumping its plump stems
and turning its heart out.
Funny that we, heavy with
our ragged flowerings,
calmly prune begonias.
Loni Watson’s History Class
by Elizabeth Elder, first
published in Watching A River
Freeze, 2000
(1480 words)
MONHEGAN GUEST
I thought I would be
on an island, on a great
rock ledge born with
the earth. I thought I
would fade into timeless
horizons of air and sea.
I thought I would think,
“What’s a year, a decade,
a life, when eternity is in
a moment.” Actually
this island ten miles out
starts in my bones and
runs through fingers into
moss on shore stones,
wrappers from the
country store, quilting
flounced on beds that
cradled guests before
me—guests who slept
and rested, dreaming
dreams of islands.
READY
Feeling jumpy,
as if a puppy
is tumbling around
on my heart, leaving
sticky paw prints.
Can’t sit still.
They should
arrive around 3.
MAN FLIES
Air flight
quickens
over this over
that, one town
two towns,
field and trees.
Airplane roars
into skies.
The man and
his heart would
have stayed on
the ground, but
the company
soars and flies.
ON THE ARK
Three sons and Noah were floating for weeks,
suspended on water and mountain peaks.
They talked about eating and what they might see;
they sat and did nothing—had lettuce and tea.
With wives and with beasts and with God knowing how,
they sailed over bog-lands their daughters would plow.
Sailed Shem across Israel’s promise of lands
and Japheth by Palestine’s future sands.
Sailed Ham, poor Ham, he could not have guessed
that his own indiscretion would tarnish the rest.
Ham sailed with his brothers, was saved with his brothers
to people the Earth, for the future, for others.
Three sons and Noah and others they kept,
drifted and floated and waited and slept.
RABBITS IN GIFT SHOPS
Rabbits in gift shops
have places to go,
and people who buy them
ought to know
that a rabbit for sale
is a meaningful hare
distinct from a pig
or a mouse or a bear.
A bunny for money will
dream when it sleeps,
and a rabbit for sale is
a rabbit for keeps.
LITTLE OLD HOUSE
The couple moved
right into me. They
added chairs, and
had some tea.
The things they brought
and said and ate
continued to assimilate.
They added kittens, then
a pup—and realized
I was filling up.
A baby came and with him
cribs and swings and
toys and plastic bibs.
There’s no more room.
It isn’t good. I can’t
contain them as I should.
I can change. It’s not
too late. I simply will
accommodate.
But, oh, the agony
and pain of saws and
nails, and in the rain
I’m all exposed. My
roof is off. The baby’s
cold. He has a cough.
The work of change is
hard to bear—
But look! My dormer’s
in the air! The wood is
smooth and bright and
new. My roof is tight, my
shape is true. The
people smile and spread
their arms and talk of
me and all my charms.
For I’m as old as I
can be, but I’ve adapted.
Good for me.
THIS MAINE
This Maine is poetry,
not verse. This Maine
may seem meant for
measured play,
but we know
the potato town’s
tight line; the deep-woods
rooted timbres; we know
the lone fisherman’s
broken-charted quatrain;
the winter’s gash of frozen phrasing;
the rock ledge that spreads
a million years and more both
ways defying time and meter.
We know this ocean marriage
of swells and clash where
organisms cannot explain
themselves. This Maine has
soul for body, form so found
and free we cannot parse
it out. We know we cannot
know this Maine beyond her
grounded, rhythmic implications.
LIGHT ON THE WALL
Centuries from now
when I remember the
day we met, our summer,
I will picture this pattern
of light—trapezoids on
ivory walls. It comes
from a pole lamp in the
cul-de-sac—night light
for the neighborhood—
soft sphere of light
for the neighborhood’s
great slumbering soul—
soft light shaped through
windows into gentle,
flat forms guarding dreams
held, for all the days,
in perfect geometry.
LOUIS
Louis is a rabbit
who is kind of
hard to read. He
doesn’t have
opinions and he
doesn’t take the
lead. He doesn’t
talk of policy,
society, or sin.
He doesn’t note
the temperature or
let the reasons in.
He’s a bunny kind
of rabbit, sort of
sweet and sort of
funny, stuffed with
fluff and in the
habit of devising
secret meanings
for what other
people say. He
doesn’t give a
person any help
or any play.
I put him in the
closet for the
rest of the day.
DON’T CALL HIM LOOEY
Don’t call him Looey—
that isn’t his name;
and don’t give him sprouts,
if it’s all the same.
This Louis is firm
about certain desires,
like having a nap when
his stuffing tires,
and having an “s” on
the end of his name.
And don’t give him sprouts,
if it’s all the same.
INSIDE OUT
The inside of a hurricane
is a quiet place.
The sun shines and
there is no wind.
People call this place
the eye of the storm
as if the storm sees clearly
between where it’s been
and what’s coming.
The hurricane sweeps across
the sea and the land,
with its eye in its middle.
“The eye went right over us,”
a child told me; and I
wonder: what did it see.
SALT WATER SWIMMING
Step on rocks. Wave,
balance.
Swoop now. Plunge.
Suspense is how
this water holds us up.
We flip and float like
dreams.
Sink now. Trudge.
Step on rocks. Wave,
balance.
Salt is how this
promise dries on skin.
OLD ROSES
The rugosa rose
blooms all summer,
buds after blossom,
aging young. Old
flower, fragile memory,
drops wet petals.
Buds open.
