Walking Across The Atlantic in  General   

I wait for the holiday crowd to clear the beach
before stepping onto the first wave.

Soon I am walking across the Atlantic
thinking about Spain,
checking for whales, waterspouts.
I feel the water holding up my shifting weight.
Tonight I will sleep on its rocking surface.

But for now I try to imagine what
this must look like to the fish below,
the bottoms of my feet appearing, disappearing.

By Billy Collins

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Other poems by Billy Collins:

• Candle Hat
• Child Development
• Consolation
• Dear Reader
• Dharma
• Directions
• Fishing On The Susquehanna In July
• Flames
• For Bartleby The Scrivener
• I Ask You
• I Go Back To The House For A Book
• Introduction To Poetry
• Invention
• Japan
• Madmen
• Man Listening To Disc
• Marginalia
• Neither Snow
• Nightclub
• Nostalgia
• On Turning Ten
• Picnic, Lightning
• Pinup
• Reading An Anthology Of Chinese Poems Of The Sung
• Shoveling Snow With Buddha
• Silence
• Snow Day
• Study In Orange And White
• The Art Of Drowning
• The Best Cigarette
• The First Dream
• The Iron Bridge
• The Only Day In Existence
• Today
• Walking Across The Atlantic