Sunset Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Now the sun is on the lip of the canyon and
She is utterly biting him to keep him there
And outline her long body to the strange settlers in her;
But he will not tarry, for he is tired too,
And soon to sink into the dawns of China men,
Ladies in the atolls waiting for him with glasses of sweaty cherry,
Women with unlaced bikinis on the prows of long ships,
Knowing that he will soon enfold them with the blindness of a foreign language,
So he is eager to leave,
And I am watching his inevitable departure unpronounced through
The smeared glass. Ironically, not thinking of him,
But a woman five states over swimming in the humidity of two seas,
And wondering now if in any of these downcast motes,
Bits of her might have traveled subconsciously,
In the spores of the great valley, her legs open trying to seduce this king:
But he will hear no more of it, for now he is tired of her and
He weighs too much for this hemisphere, his hands
Pushing her back in the weeping shadows.
I try to distinguish her out of the spores of her fair city,
All the tardy and negligent children in their classes having
Almost turned 30; and I am sure she is here, just as I’m
Sure she could give a damn.