Fenceness, Chairness, Diningroomness, Poolness!

The Chairs That No One Sits In

by Billy Collins

You see them on porches and on lawns down by the lakeside, usually arranged in pairs implying a couple   who might sit there and look out at the water or the big shade trees. The trouble is you never see anyone   sitting in these forlorn chairs though at one time it must have seemed a good place to stop and do nothing for a while.   Sometimes there is a little table between the chairs where no one is resting a glass or placing a book facedown.   It may not be any of my business, but let us suppose one day that everyone who placed those vacant chairs   on a veranda or a dock sat down in them if only for the sake of remembering what it was they thought deserved   to be viewed from two chairs, side by side with a table in between. The clouds are high and massive on that day.   The woman looks up from her book. The man takes a sip of his drink. Then there is only the sound of their looking,   the lapping of lake water, and a call of one bird then another, cries of joy or warning— it passes the time to wonder which.

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From Aimless Love, Random House, 2013.