Because I have not given you a poem in lo these many moons...

I was digging through my old notebooks, as I sometimes do, and I found these notes from a Billy Collins poetry reading I attended last year. I have no idea why I didn't post any of this at the time - not only is it a lovely poem, but Billy Collins made fun of Freud in his preface to reading it, which is always a plus - but here they are now.

“He thought he’d figured out what women want—the answer to that insulting question of Freud’s—and what women want is not loyalty or passion or respect. It’s simile. Yes, what women want most is to be compared to other things.”

Litany
by Billy Collins

You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine...
-Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

( continued )