My Beautiful Sea Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I lie down in my beautiful sea,
A pain in my side, my eyes far away:
Already, the continents are beginning to move,
Like mother and father screaming from the carport;
The palms sway insouciantly, and the white and the
Pink Cadillacs move beneath their throats with old men
In ice-cream suites, pockets full of dollar bills,
Minds filled with little women in little bathing suites:

I wish I could understand the way she moved, first
To me, and then away, as if drawn by another body in
The sky, as if drawn by some mineral though relaxing in the
Dim living room with a glass filled with liquor and ice,
Where there is no air-conditioning, but a dizzy sort of dance
Under the foundations and out in the blitzing suns,
Where the boys play with Tonkas, and the girls with
Barbies,

And the old bridges over the intercostals of cleft palettes
Have yet to fall like other sorts of games, chipping on the
Abutments, and the rhymes of sunken soldiers, who stepped
Too far out into her eyes: This is all I see now, all I see,
As I lie down in my beautiful sea, a pain in my side,
My grave going down as I close my eyes,
I reach out to her in another serve; Again, I fear, she is
Pulling back, breathing all that she feels close to her chest,

And making me so I can no longer catch my breath,
As I try my futile dream to pull myself towards her in the
Undertow of a song, I lie down in my beautiful sea,

I lie down in my beautiful sea.