Billy Collins Poems

First, her tippet made of tulle,
easily lifted off her shoulders and laid
on the back of a wooden chair.
...

I have never been fishing on the Susquehanna
or on any river for that matter
to be perfectly honest.
...

I turn around on the gravel
and go back to the house for a book,
something to read at the doctor’s office,
...

In most self-portraits it is the face that dominates:
Cezanne is a pair of eyes swimming in brushstrokes,
Van Gogh stares out of a halo of swirling darkness,
Rembrant looks relieved as if he were taking a breather
...

I wonder how it all got started, this business
about seeing your life flash before your eyes
while you drown, as if panic, or the act of submergence,
could startle time into such compression, crushing
...

Today I pass the time reading
a favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.
...

Tonight the moon is a cracker,
with a bite out of it
floating in the night,
...

Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,
its white flag waving over everything,
the landscape vanished,
not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness,
...