It's not Monday (obviously), but Monday was an atrocious day and not even a poem was going to save it. In fact, whatever poem I chose would probably be marred for all eternity because of its association with Monday. So here it is, two days late. It's a Billy Collins poem because my interview with him was the best part of that wretched day.
The Drive
There were four of us in the car
early that summer evening,
short-hopping from one place to another,
thrown together by a light toss of circumstance.
I was in the backseat
directly behind the driver who was talking
about one thing and another
while his wife smiled quietly at the windshield.
I was happy to be paying attention
to the rows of tall hedges
and the gravel driveways we were passing
and then the yellow signs on the roadside stores.
It was only when he began to belittle you
that I found myself shifting my focus
to the back of his head,
a head that was large and expansively bald.
As he continued talking
and the car continued along the highway,
I began to divide his head into sections
by means of dotted lines,
the kind you see on the diagram of a steer.
Only here, I was not interested in short loin,
rump, shank, or sirloin tip,
but curious about what region of his cranium
housed the hard nugget of his malice.
Tom, my friend, you would have enjoyed the sight--
the car turning this way and that,
the sunlight low in the trees,
the man going on about your many failings,
and me sitting quietly behind him
wearing my white butcher's apron
and my small, regulation butcher's hat.
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