One life to live

by Billy Collins

This is the only life I have, this one in my head, the one that travels along the surface of my body singing the low voltage song of the ego, the one that feels like a ball between my ears sometimes, and other times feels absolutely galactic, the life that my feet carry around like two blind scholars working together on a troublesome manuscript. This is the only life I have, and I am standing dead in the centre of it, like a man doing a rope trick in a rodeo, passing the lasso over his body smiling inside a twirling of ovals and ellipses. This is the only life I have and I never step out of it except to follow a character down the alleys of a novel, or when love makes me want to remove my clothes and sail classical records off a cliff. Otherwise you can always find me within this hoop of myself, the rope flying around me, moving up to encircle my head like an equator or a halo or a zero. Who could resist the delight of the line about the two blind scholars?    This is Collins at his warmest and most succinct, even if the last word adds a touch of pessimism. Return to the Index - Go to the Main Page