I put a possum in my pocket
Everywhere I go
To protect against probability
My sister says I’m superstitious
But Probability is Math
And Math is a Science
And Scientists are not superstitious

So to sway my sister
This is my hypothesis

The probability of a piano
Plummeting from the sky and
Pancakeing a passerby
Is for the sake of argument
A one in a million
That’s not bad
But not bad is not good enough
For Science
So I put a possum in my pocket

Let me show you the Math
No one has a possum in their pocket
Because they eat pockets
And smell like pee.
The probability therefore
of a person who has a pocket possum
getting pummeled with a piano is
One in the entire population of the planet

Now potentially
Upon publication of this premise
People will Put Possums
in their pants pockets
Pushing the probability
Past the perfection point
And soon there will be news stories
Involving people possums and pianos
Popping up all over the place.

That is not the fault of Science
That is the fault of my sister

Let me show the Math
Sassy sister says scientist
Sibling is superstitious.
So said sibling summarizes
A Scientific supposition
Which suddenly circulates
His safety secrets
Somehow the son of science
Synchronizes his standard
Into a simple syllogism

If you subtly store something simple
In a sack a sock or a side pocket
Said simple something will
Substantially supplement survival
Or
Probability protects
Providing persons
Are good at Math
And sister-less

So select something
Not a possum to potentially pocket
And live forever.
It’s Science.

So this weekend I heard an awesome performance on Garrison Keillor's radio show A Praire Home Companion by my new favorite poet Billy Collins. Here is his fan site. He has an entire one of his CD's called The Best Cigarette avalible through a Creative Commons Licencse. That is awesome. It is also at Download.com.

I'm pretty sure he is my new poetic hero. Read this poem that made me fall in love with him.

The Revenant

I am the dog you put to sleep,
as you like to call the needle of oblivion,
come back to tell you this simple thing:
I never liked you--not one bit.

When I licked your face,
I thought of biting off your nose.
When I watched you toweling yourself dry,
I wanted to leap and unman you with a snap.

I resented the way you moved,
your lack of animal grace,
the way you would sit in a chair to eat,
a napkin on your lap, knife in your hand.

I would have run away,
but I was too weak, a trick you taught me
while I was learning to sit and heel,
and--greatest of insults--shake hands without a hand.

I admit the sight of the leash
would excite me
but only because it meant I was about
to smell things you had never touched.

You do not want to believe this,
but I have no reason to lie.
I hated the car, the rubber toys,
disliked your friends and, worse, your relatives.

The jingling of my tags drove me mad.
You always scratched me in the wrong place.
All I ever wanted from you
was food and fresh water in my metal bowls.

While you slept, I watched you breathe
as the moon rose in the sky.
It took all of my strength
not to raise my head and howl.

Now I am free of the collar,
the yellow raincoat, monogrammed sweater,
the absurdity of your lawn,
and that is all you need to know about this place

except what you already supposed
and are glad it did not happen sooner--
that everyone here can read and write,
the dogs in poetry, the cats and the others in prose.

- Billy Collins