On “Introduction to Poetry” by Billy Collins.
We watched and felt it, touched it and tasted Its inked spices: and heard nothing at all. We shone a dozen lights on it, pasted It in red scrips on the brain's crazy wall: Still nothing. We crumpled up the wasted Pages, and took the poem out for a stroll. It murmured secrets to the earth and sky And told us nothing. The probing mouse it swallowed, and so shocked, So scorched our fingers, that we lost the trail Of the light-switch. On skis we would have locked It in our embrace, but it turned to nail Our ankles to its waves. It crowed and mocked, And told us nothing. Lost, we were scourged for answers, for trim, Gradable essays in so many words. We dared not wait upon the poem's whim And took up the hose.