Will Clean Your Whole House & Everything That's In It

I never clean my home like I do when I have a deadline for work. The Clorox comes out. I get the idea in my head that I can't do this one thing until everything else is in order. How can I sit down and write a recommendation, the desk is a mess? Suddenly the desk bothers me.

If I understand him, Billy Collins is addressing this Mr. Clean phenomenon in his Advice For Writers. I can't find that poem on line, but you can imagine - if you know his style. Here now is a response and homage from an aspiring poet:

A Reply to Billy Collins
By Derrick Porter

Thank you for your advice, since when
I have washed down every wall,
the floor shining like Solomon's palace,
and a second letter to the Pope
sits spotless on the hall table.

As there are no fields or rocks nearby
I scoured undersides of pots placed
around the garden, but the only eggs found
were on rafts of migratory ants which flew out
whenever I managed to lift any flagstone.

On returning to the house I stowed
what brushes were found under the sink.
Did it matter they were hardened white,
and the sponge a body part
collected from a skeletal coral?

At dawn - weary-eyed - I encountered
the immaculate altar of my desk,
but the only sully rising from its surface
was a stack of poems that rose like layers
of ungarnished tortilla.

From a small jug, lapis lazuli,
I took the sharpest (the only) pencil,
and wrote the tiniest sentences possible.
Mr Collins, I have been up all night
and no ant has followed me in from the wood.