Post-Elizabethan Pills

Billy Collins

The moon climbs into the sky tonight
with the same sad steps
as she did in that sonnet by Philip Sidney,
but without the busy little archer,
for no baby Cupid animates
this moon-lit lawn
that runs down to a nameless stream.

And Sidney’s hollow skull
can no longer behold
the ceiling of St. Paul’s,
leaving me sad as the moon’s steps
and wondering if I should double
my usual dose, or cut down
to just one, maybe every other day?

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Billy Collins is the author of thirteen books of poetry, his most recent being Water, Water. He has edited Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry, 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day, and Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems about Birds. A graduate of Holy Cross College, he received his doctorate from the University of California at Riverside and is a former Distinguished Professor at Lehman College (CUNY). He served two terms as United States Poet Laureate (2001–2003) and as New York State Poet (2004–2006). He is a New York Public Library “Literary Lion” and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.