我要他們拿一首詩
高高舉起至光亮
象個彩色幻燈片

或把一隻耳朵緊靠它的蜂房。

我說將一隻老鼠投入詩
並注視它探查它的出路，

或行走於詩歌房子內
感覺牆壁尋找燈開關。

我要它們滑水
躍過一首詩的表面
向岸上作者名字揮手。

但所有他們想做的是
用繩子將詩捆綁在椅子上
並嚴刑拷打使之招供。

他們開始用軟管打它
以找出其真實內涵。

Introduction to Poetry

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

--Billy Collins