Devilishly Heavenly Body Poem by Robert Rorabeck

She’s a hot Jupiter:
In a summer meadow she burns out all
The other planets,
Or at least that’s how the scientists described
Her in their catalogue, i.e. Leggy science fictions.
Mamma’s boys drink their milk in slugs
As she revolves so far away and yet so dangerous.
Because of her my good side is now my
Bad and visa versa, and always will be:
I took over an old Spanish fort near the Mediterranean
Sea and held it for five days calling her to come down
Even around noontime and destroy me with but
A peck of a kiss,
In her hips sways the surf, an entire legion of
Perfect unborn children, slated for Plato’s epiphany;
And this is all true, and I’ve gone mad,
Sitting on the rock strewn stoop and
Drinking Chablis or Thunderbird- Only a sommelier could
Tell the difference between a cheap slut and a
Real princess,
But of her the windmills lined out like a sorority of
Daydreams spinning, drying their multi-armed laundry
Like the cobalt blue of a Hindu goddess- I don’t know the name of
Which one; but she is there.
Each windmill said her name as they made the slightest
Amount of energy all at once like a flower-pedal army;
But in the daylight she isn’t even true,
Just a thorn so deep under my flesh no one would believe
The homeopathy of such an unquenchable influence.
I’ll fire the green copper canons all day,
And howl with the dogs after the corrugated sunset-
And point her out there in the vast breathlessness, and say
Now won’t she come and step forward and blow some
Smoke, and all at once reverse the poles,
And turn me to inheriting ash as I so deserve,
The bomb-shell of my catastrophe,
Destroying me with the immaculate energy of that
So devilishly heavenly body.