Five Foot Tall Heaven Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Cabbages in secret muggy rows,
Like the clefts you’d have
If you were a centipede,
Like the children I would leave needing gasping
Like silver-pinned fish if
I were Silvia Plath,
But now everything is on the move:
I used to take the Turnpike up every weekend
To where the alligators perpetuated
The condolences of adolescent post hibernations,
And I saw you once there all decked out in your
Soiree,
You all smoky and creamed, never once suspecting
You might once have been my muse;
And you even beat out your mother, and thus
Had very little to prove.
Because you are so very beautiful and your name comes
Out of the tips of mountains like the very fine
Secretions of fairytales,
Like raspberries higher up on the footpaths away from
Cars,
Where all the light is smoky from the forest fire that
Has a moral conclusion and a finer point,
And you are there around about in your higher heels like
A fire station so I have to look up to see into
The sweet smelling kitchens of your eyes
Even though I am a hefty centaur and you are little more
Than a five foot tall heaven in a pony tail.