Dear Professor Collins,

Remember last year, when you did a reading at St. James Cathedral in Chicago? I was in the audience that night, hanging on your every word. After the show, my mom bought me a copy of Nine Horses, your latest book at the time, as a memento of that inspirational night. I don't remember when it was that I first encountered your poem "Creatures" in this collection, but I do remember that I was surprised, because I, too, have seen creatures, even in the Oriental carpet that is under me now.

Some of them have been seen in a split-second, then gone, while others stay forever like old, dependable friends. Even those who haunt me and have never been my friends are friends with each other, frolicking across a carpet of a bumpy wall.

I have been seeing them for years, but "Creatures" started me thinking that maybe they're more than tricks of the eye. Perhaps they are beings from another dimension, or guardian angels of a house and its inhabitants. Maybe when we die we become faces in windowsills and floorboards, to be looked in upon by an occasional child or an adult who would immediately shake herself.

It sounds implausible, but everyone believes in something implausible, whether or not they truly believe in it with their hearts. My mom knocks on wood when she talks about someone getting injured, to assure herself that it won't happen. I don't know if she really thinks it will help, but still she does it, because it could make a difference.

And the creatures could be real. I'm not even sure if I believe they are, but it's still a possibility, as are so many other things I never thought might actually exist: life on other planets, for instance, or ghosts. This poem was like a key for me; I had been looking at the creatures with a closed mind and you opened it for me, and now I can see whole worlds behind it.

Sincerely,
Anna Stefanic

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