My Number
Billy Collins
(1941– )
Is Death miles away from this house, | |
| reaching for a widow in Cincinnati | |
| or breathing down the neck of a lost hiker | |
| in British Columbia? | |
| Is he too busy making arrangements, | 5 |
| tampering with air brakes, | |
| scattering cancer cells like seeds, | |
| loosening the wooden beams of roller coasters | |
| to bother with my hidden cottage | |
| that visitors find so hard to find? | 10 |
| Or is he stepping from a black car | |
| parked at the dark end of the lane, | |
| shaking open the familiar cloak, | |
| its hood raised like the head of a crow, | |
| and removing the scythe from the trunk? | 15 |
| Did you have any trouble with the directions? | |
| I will ask, as I start talking my way out of this. |
Another fun personification story from Collins. I find it quite interesting that Collins often uses a personification of male in most of his poems. Does death feel male? I guess, maybe it does? While birth feels female? Yes. Creator and Destroyer. I love his last line..."as I start talking my way out of this".
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