Ballpoint and Bananas

Did you ever write on a banana with a ballpoint pen? It is a unique experience and one you will want to repeat.

-Joy Sikorski, How to Draw a Radish, 147.

Hippos on Holiday

is not really the title of a movie
but if it was I should be sure to see it.
I love their short legs and big heads,
the whole hippo look.
Hundreds of them would frolic
in the mud of a wide, slow-moving river,
and I would eat my popcorn
in the dark of a neighborhood theater.
When they opened their enormous mouths
lined with big stubby teeth
I would drink my enormous Coke.

I would be both in my seat
and in the water playing with the hippos,
which is the way it is
with a truly great movie.
Only a mean-spirited reviewer
would ask on holiday from what?

-Billy Collins, Ballistics, 42.