Reminiscing Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Now there is no need for those words
Used to call her:
She standing out readily, her glittering stiletto
Up against the bricks; but not for you:
For you are a fool trudging with that balsam wood
Cross over the hills, the power lines swaybacked
Above the moist terrapins:
And supposing this is all fable, and the animals
Are making small talk, smoking generic cigarettes:
The hare’s eyes are red and just out of high-school;
But certainly now you will not be published,
Even as you fall down in the grass and let the insects
Bother you, and laugh, for the dunes are near the sea
And over spilled with defeated conquistadors,
A word you could call out a thousand times to her from
Over the toy seas of bathtubs, but it wouldn’t do you
Any good, given her inclinations: Now she is nuzzling
Up to him, and bighting her lip: If you look long enough,
He will be doing it for her, and there will be blood in
Secret little places, but don’t try to save her,
Because she might enjoy it; so take your lunch out
Of the cafeteria and hide face down in the effluvious oil
Slicks, and skip across the scabby backs of Precambrian
Politics, if you are light enough, and then play the truant
Near in the parks where she readily comes; and swing
For her in the entrained arc, if you must; and wonder how
Long clouds last, and if reformed remember themselves as they
Spill in their cerulean avenues over the clean geometries of
Suburbia’s sectarian steeples,
Each pool glistening in semiprecious contrast to the
Canal’s flat ribbons; because she has already forgotten you,
And it is a long ways home, by foot or bicycle, giving plenty
Of time for reminiscing.