Rings Around Her Knees Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Moonlight on your side of the world—
Around there, a political labyrinth that is so
Easily dissolved—
Melted away with enough desire—
And all of the mountains lactating, bare-titted—
Over spilling with song birds falling asleep
In the sunlight—
And my mother metamorphoses—comes
Down with herself from the keyholes of
The snowy rafters that seem to have caught a tear—
Becomes the instrumental lactates
Collecting through the valley's choruses—
Like the aquariums of rum in my belly—
She goes downward in a somnambulant rollercoaster—
As she matriculated towards her daughters,
She seems to be growing younger—
Soon she will be a minnow—
Soon she will be a swordfish—as the candlelight strikes
Across the stars—
Goddesses on a holiday lost in the picnics of
Jupiter—maelstroms of bouquets sent to her—
Ships busied in the daydreams of the seas leaping
Like happy whelps for the scuppernongs growing in
Rings around her knees.