PURITY - by Billy Collins

My favourite time to write is in the late afternoon,

weekdays, particularly Wednesdays.

This is how I go about it: 

I take a fresh pot of tea into my study and close the door.

then I remove my clothes and live them in a pile

as if I had melted to death and my legacy consistet of only

a white shirt, a pair of pants and a pot of cold tea. 

Then I remove my flesh and hang it over a chair.

I slide it off my bones like a silken garment.

I do this so that what I write will be pure,

completely rinsed of the carnal,

uncontaminated by the preocupations of the body. 

Finally I remove each of my organs and arrange them

on a small table near the window.

I do not want to hear their ancient rhythms

when I am trying to tap out my own drumbeat.

Now I sit down at the desk, ready to begin.

I am entirely pure: nothing but a skeleton at a typewritter.

I should mention that sometimes I leave my penis on.

I find it difficult to ignore the temptation.

Then I am a skeleton with a penis at a typewriter.

In this condition I write extraordinary love poems,

most of them exploiting the connection between sex and death.

I am concentration itself: I exist in a universe

where there is nothing but sex, death, and typewriting.

After a spell of this I remove my penis too.

Then I am all skull and bones typing into the afternoon.

Just the absolute essentials, no flounces.

Now I write only about death, most classical of themes

in language light as the air between my ribs.

Afterward, I reward myself by going for a drive at sunset.

I replace my organs and slip back into my flesh

and clothes. Then I back the car out of the garage

and speed through woods on winding country roads,

passing stone walls, farmhouses, and frozen pounds,

all perfectly arranged like words in a famous sonnet.