The Crane Poem by Doren Robbins

It all came down to a crane I saw
flow into blurring dusk and shallow water.
It didn't notice me stopped there a couple of
row-boat lengths away, chewing a Tuscany loaf,
the best I could find and my teeth endure.
The poems gathered in my mind, two or three
that were no good, so I quit. Imagination, imagination,
I'm just one of its metamorphic dolls.
Walking, tolerated by a crane hunting shallows.
Really, I don't give a damn about poetry—first,
her body more than my ink, then the wave curling
on one side to form a pipe, before rising up curved
like a woman's hip, the wave releasing like
a woman's lower back, arched. First, her body.
I could barely make out the two anchored boats
that weren't there the day before,
and the long throat feeding itself in the night.
I dropped my hand to adjust the twist inside my pants.
Who was there but a bird turning its beak, a bird aware
of my heavy clothes rustling when I walked?
The crane in the dark. The two of us.