Dream as if You will Live Forever, Live as if You will Die Tomorrow

'Old Bones' by Misha Collins 

This morning
The smell of bacon
Brought me downstairs
But before I reached
The open kitchen door
A voice stopped me

My mother telling
Her old, arthritic dog,

“I know sweetness
You’ve been carrying those bones
For a long time.”

I leaned unseen
On the mildewed
Window sill
Watching her

Sip coffee
Fry Bacon
Her old dog
Pressing at her knee.
__________________________________________________

'Baby Pants' by Misha Collins

This morning I drive across town for a friend
To Justin’s house on a Saturday at 9.

His wife yells from under wet hair
Belt unbuckled
“Justin!”
He’s down in the office

And I sit—collapse on the new couch
Custom made, brown and squarer than a couch should be.

Justin’s baby produces baby pants for my inspection.
I’m impressed, he can find his own pants now.

Can’t put them on, but knows
They go
On his baby legs.

And there I am
With my friend’s family
On a weekend morning.

The mother holds an envelope
In her teeth
Hoists and struggles
To pant her boy.

I’m slouching and hot in my vest
My blue, down vest.
Thinking today was colder than it is.

Forgetting that fall in California
Is like summer back home.

Plastic diapers pack the thighs of tiny corduroys
The smell of Cheerios bloated and floating in milk
What have I missed?

*Both poems are collected in Columbia Poetry Review #21,2008.