“This snowfall is my final fantasy. Once

America the woman was coming on my dick,

her flag pin a pinhole to a world without strife. But then—”

he sneezes. “Let me begin again. Terrorism.

The weeping willow lowers her hair and head in sorrow.

The fireman and his wife

die and die and are finally admitted to the eternal life.”

Billy Collins, varicose, vain, draws a sip

from the glass of water on the podium,

which was made.

“We are now in paradise. The fireman and his wife enter

The Greatest Bar on Earth singly, and each order a whiskey.

What happens? They see each other across the room,

move their tab to Windows on the World and dine

on peach schnapps, apple cobbler, mulled wine—”

standing ovation. Yet Collins has continued breathlessly,

“all culminating in a fine venison still bleeding from the carbine.”

Collins takes another sip.

Dennis Hastert leans into view and tips

his coonskin cap.

“I’ll skip ahead now to the end.

This raindrop is God’s apology, this rainbow the rainbow of its sincerity,

and this snowfall is my final fantasy: asses to asses, etc.,

but between: the play of fading daylight on the wintry screen:

the lives of dust that drift down from their holding patterns and, in their landings, must mean.

Thank you.”