Love

The boy at at the far end of the train car
kept looking behind him
as if he were afraid or expecting someone

and then she appeared in the glass door
of the forward car and he rose
and opened the door and let her in

and she entered the car carrying
a large black case
in the unmistakeable shape of a cello.

She looked like an angel  with a high forehead
and somber eyes and her hair
was tied up behind her neck with a black bow.

And because of all that,
he seemed a little awkward
in his happiness to see her,

whereas she was simply there,
perfectly existing as a creature
with a soft face who played the cello,

And the reason I am writing this
on the back of a manilla envelope
now that they have left the train together

is to tell you that when she turned
to lift the large, delicate cello
onto the overhead rack,

I saw him looking up at her
and what she was doing
the way the eyes of saints are painted

when they are looking up at God
when he is doing something  remarkable
something that identifies him as God.

Man in Space by Billy Collins

All you have to do is listen to the way a man
sometimes talks to his wife at a table of people
and notice how intent he is on making his point
even though her lower lip is beginning to quiver,

and you know why the women in science
fiction movies who inhabit a planet of their own 
are not pictured making a salad or reading a magazine
when the men from earth arrive in their rocket,

why they are always standing in a semicircle
with their arms folded, their bare legs set apart,
their breasts protected by hard metal disks.

With My Lips Together

With my lips together
I make the loudest sound
Speaking only through my eyes
using my body to compensate for the silence
I say more with my hands
than most people say in a lifetime

I am a slow southern girl
taught the etiquette of how to be a lady
taught to smile and laugh
and keep my opinions to myself
Raised on grits and hospitality
encouraged to be a wife and a homemaker
I learned instead to write
to explode on paper
to expel my emotions through blue lines and black ink

Today with my lips together
I collect emotions and pleasures and disappointments
I build mountains and castles with their blocks
and with my black ink
I hold my tongue

Poem 1999; Published by Random House