Brown On Brown Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Saturday schools of canals, of wild otters playing with
Rolled grapefruit,
Of star-fruit and snails,
Of the wicked fairy-tales of water-moccasins twined
Like barbed wire on the rood:
Elizabeth teaches everything that is good,
But once her light fails,
I still want the underbelly of airplanes, the venal escargot
Of your beefy entrails:
I want to say your name and invade the country of your
Caves:
I want to paint your art and lick your slaves:
Oh, living cadaver of darts and valentines,
Brown, brown eyes:
You who love all the boys and go out onto the basket courts
For dinner time,
Spend one down struck evening with me:
Unbutton your blouse like you’ve done for every
Mouse in the entire infested house,
And lay your eyes softly down in the crèche of my own
Brown:
Lay your hands and body brown down into my
Graying town,
And we will hold out while the oil leaks,
While the rivers creak, while the sun is going down over all of
This playground-
By our anonymous things unrequited prom king and
Queen,
What a luscious venal scene:
Brown on brown, sand dollar-otter,
Sugar cane burning town- with the sun going,
Going, gone.