These are the kind you are
supposed
to stop to look at, as I do this
morning,
but just long enough
so as not to carry my
non-stopping
around with me all day,
a big medicine ball of neglect
and disregard.
But now I seem to be carrying
my not-stopping-long-enough ball
as I walk around
the circumference of myself
and up and down the angles of
the day.
Roadside flowers,
when I get back to my room
I will make it all up to you.
I will lie on my stomach and
write
in a notebook how lighthearted
you were,
pink and white among the weeds,
wild phlox perhaps,
or at least of cousin of that
family,
a pretty one who comes to visit
every summer for two weeks
without her parents,
she who unpacks her things
upstairs
while I am out on the lawn
throwing the ball as high as I
can,
catching it almost
every time in my two
outstretched hands.
Billy Collins
Collins, Billy. “Roadside
Flowers”, Nine Horses. New York: Random House, 2002. pp. 43 – 44.
