Spain Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Spain



I started drinking before the plane left
The rainy tarmac,
And after I lost count we were in Spain,
And the hills were busy
And the cities were filled with museums.
I got a tattoo in Madrid,
And my aunt kissed her old professors
Who had killed the dragon,
And we visited the shore where she had
Made love with an actor a year ago,
But I didn’t know about that then....
There were orange groves like silken armies
Under the moon,
And higher up Roman ghosts marching in
The ruins, and women I couldn’t see but
For their hair flowing above the earth,
Women on bicycles going away;
I thought I almost heard the poet whispering
From beneath the olive trees somewhere
Off the way, but I was so drunk,
And the hills were so dry they dragged down
The clouds and drank until the horizon
Was indistinguishable from the mauve canvas,
And the ways went around her like ribbons
Down into the ancient sea,
Where the artists took young girls and drew
Their outlines, and filled them in with salt,
And red tears dyed from the sea;
And I thought I saw a girl I didn’t know,
I still think of, but I was so drunk,
And the woman we stayed with was married
And had her art exhibited in Japan and Denmark,
Boats so sad that they warmed into the docks;
On New Years she called down with her friend
That she was in love,
But I took to the streets, and the poets whispered,
And people gathered and spoke their tongues of
Marble ham,
And I fell in love with all of them, in different parts,
Until I fell back home and landed,
And sobered and eventually graduated from high school.

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Robert Rorabeck

Robert Rorabeck

Berrien Springs
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