Beating Its Soul Poem by Robert Rorabeck

From her body the brownness stems, youngish, quivering,
Dancing into the light of the yellow world,
Like sailors into a lighthouse,
Or snakes of smoke up from the lavishing ruins of
Empty friends:
This pillar of my love transcends the opened hoods and doors
Of cars,
Or the laughing violets of my adversaries, the canary tourisms
Of the peppermint mines, the unicorns on the make:
A motherly reason who I have intruded and wish to tattoo like
A windmill into this flesh,
The perfumes of her overworked body she dismisses as anything
Sweet;
Her eyes open a jewelry store of disregard: she says everyday
That we will get married tomorrow: I dream of her like a cross
In an otherwise feral mind;
Her sisters mature her divinity by means of ripening sorority,
As I wish my body to pantomime the metamorphosis of
Rain back again into the sky,
Into her body, heart gathering wings, beating its soul, its Alma.