OK. I’m being lazy this week with blogging. I’m just going to post one more Billy Collins poem. This one is called Man in Space.
All you have to do is listen to the way a man
sometimes talks to his wife at a table of people
and notice how intent he is on making his point
even though her lower lip is beginning to quiver,and you will know why the women in science
fiction movies who inhabit a planet of their own
are not pictured making a salad or reading a magazine
when men from earth arrive in their rocket,why they are always standing in a semicircle
with their arms folded, their bare legs set apart,
their breasts protected by hard metal disks.
I think this poem could be about a lot of different things, depending on how you approach it. It sure reminded me of one of those old cheesy Star Trek episodes.
A lot of the gals on that show had getups like this. Half of them using ended up kissing William Shatner and then later trying to mind-control him or something. One person I read commented about this photo:
“This is the episode with the giant can opener duel! Excelleeeeeent.”