Billy Collins

If this were a novel,
it would begin with a character,
a man alone on a southbound train

The first one to rise on a Sunday morning,
I enter the white bathroom
trying not to think of Christ or Wallace Stevens.

All winter long they are occupied only by their vacancy.
The paintings look out from the white walls.
The wicker beds and the wicker chairs are not taken.

It's a sunny weekday in May
and I have had a bowl of beef stew
and a cold bottle of beer on the brick patio

This morning I sit across from you
at the same small table,
the sun italicizing