Improv 2, Post 9, Week 10

Bonsai
Billy Collins

All it takes is one to throw a room
completely out of whack.

Over by the window
it looks hundreds of yards away,

a lone stark gesture of wood
on that distant cliff of a table.

Up close, it draws you in,
cuts everything down to its size.

Look at it from the doorway,
and the world dilates and bloats.

The button lying next to it
is now a earl wheel,

the book of matches is a raft,
and the coffee cup a cistern

to catch the same rain
that moistens its small plot of dark, mossy earth.

For it even carries its own weather,
leaning away from a fierce wind

that somehow blows
through the calm tropics of this room.

The way it bends inland at the elbow
makes me want to inch my way

to the very top of its spiky greenery,
hold onto for dear life

and watch the sea storm rage,
hoping for a tiny whale to appear.

I want to see her plunging forward
through the troughs,

tunneling under the foam and spindrift
on her annual, thousand-mile journey.


Fountain
Casey LaRue

All it takes is one to fill and swell
an entire room.

Over on the end table
its light bends through the flow

and dances on the lampshade
next to a long-burnt bulb.

Up close, its water sounds like an audience softly clapping,
blinking and choking

and smiling they nod,
each sending silent love to their children.

As the actors rush out
for the curtain call,

They join hands and bow,
Looking at their parents' faces in the tile.