Mermaids Who Don'T Belong Poem by Robert Rorabeck

A poem is in the river- going downstream
To kiss some girls runaway from school. Looking up,
You can almost see the sky-
Epilepsy of shadows and foxes in the foliage-
New make-believe mulberry tongued-
Your mother in the sleeves of a house preparing lettuce:
Diamond sized dreams in her eyes-
She watches the goldfish- the cat watches the television;
And in all of them, cells divide:
A red apple- a wheelbarrow in a weather of make-believe:
Metamorphosis in the afternoon taking off her clothes:
My muse closes her eyes and goes to sleep across the street,
And who knows where she will land when she
Dreams- Across the forests and the borders, into her old
Mexico, free of white devils and all of these sad lines
Which melt like sweet ice-cream and salty tears-
A poem a river of liquor in my blood carrying away my pains
Over her into a delta to fondle and sexually harass
Mermaids who don’t even belong.