"Introduction to Poetry," by Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
And watch him probe his way out,

Or walk inside the poem’s room
And feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
Across the surface of a poem
Waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do
Is tie the poem to a chair with rope
And torture a confession out of it

They begin beating it with a hose
To find out what it really means.