A Portrait of the Reader with a Bowl of Cereal -- Billy Collins

(Poem #7)A Portrait of the Reader with a Bowl of Cereal Every morning I sit across from you at the same small table, the sun all over the breakfast things— curve of a blue-and-white pitcher, a dish of berries— me in a sweatshirt or robe, you invisible. Most days, we are suspended over a deep pool of silence. I stare straight through you or look out the window at the garden, the powerful sky, a cloud passing behind a tree. There is no need to pass the toast, the pot of jam, or pour you a cup of tea, and I can hide behind the paper, rotate in its drum of calamitous news. But some days I may notice a little door swinging open in the morning air, and maybe the tea leaves  of some dream will be stuck to the china slope of the hour— then I will lean forward, elbows on the table, with something to tell you, and you will look up, as always, your spoon dripping milk, ready to listen. -- Billy Collins