If Mary Oliver and Billy Collins had written a poem together, 
They would have had to decide who went first. 
They might have chosen an alphabetical sequence, 
Letting Collins lead off with a scene
That both highlights and deprecates his virtuosity:
He ricochets around a room, for example, picks up a dictionary,
Sees the word “lanyard,” and stumbles into a luminous poem. 

Or, they might have gone in order of age, 
Allowing Oliver to coax us all into the scene
That she is about to illuminate—
A marsh, a wood, even a room,
The one in which you lie half asleep,
With the ominous, twiggy Night Traveler outside.
Or where a heron rises over Blackwater Pond.

Either way, in the next part, tension arises,
Though small, ironic details, if it’s Collins’ turn, 
Or, if the pen has passed to Oliver,
With the arrival of some glorious creature. 
Both will exclaim how, as poets,
They really cannot explain this thing,
Whatever it is, but still they draw us in again,
For the satisfying close.

It’s here that I like to think they’d pause,
Perhaps repair to The Night House,
For a cocktail party where other poets join them.

There’s Dorothy Parker in the corner, 
Muttering tart witticisms, having started drinking early.
Walt Whitman, maybe, singing of himself,
Or of the Body Electric.
Wordsworth, popping in 
On his return from Tintern Abbey, 
Bringing daffodils. 
Coleridge, with some opium, and that albatross. 
And Sharon Olds, going back to 1937. 
Even pale young Keats might wander by, 
Still coughing a little, but politely, into his elbow, 
Carrying a Pot of Basil as a gift, 
Cheered to see that poetry
Lives on, and in such capable hands. 

Eventually, the party ends, 
And Oliver sets off on her journey
Back to The Afterlife, to visit her beloved dogs, 
Or some Wild Geese, or even Edith Wharton,
Leaving Collins Sailing Alone Around the Room, 
Searching for the last lines.
A couplet, perhaps, or a quatrain, without the rhymes.

But certainly a salient observation
That thrills us, and feels like a benediction.