Supposing It Will Not Rain Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Early morning and
I’ve put down the narcissistic poem,
And all around the campus, like high school,
The students are finally going to sleep:
The sun is coming up,
And their stomachs are emptied on the
Graffitied sidewalks,
And someone has written in wet concrete
In Old English: the moon,
Where it has been so long sing I tasted wine
In the orange groves of Spain,
My aunt a mermaid fondled in the whiteness
Of Roman ruins,
Embedded and hyperventilating
From the sea’s recessions,
And yet out on the ways of campus the flood lights
Glow like modern wombs,
And there are professors sleeping in the
Foliage with new publications pressed to the
Tweed over the purplish hearts,
Like badges,
Their glasses askance as they snore,
A grasshopper on their lip stuck by one leg,
Farting transcendentally, a shedding jewel:
When they wake up, the Buddhists will be chanting,
And blond girls will be sunbathing,
And the preachers will have their say,
Shaking their firsts in the unbelievable sunlight
Cut in twain by the clock tower’s slender phallus,
And the clouds will begin to move, redefining shade,
And the students will move in and out of that pattern,
Their eyes blinking rapidly,
As their legs exercise conditioned to the terrorisms
Of the routine;
And then she will yawn sleepily in his arms,
And watch a hummingbird float like an illusion
Outside the window, and the spider in the corner
Waiting to dance;
She will wipe away the drool and fondle his eyelashes
Until he notices her,
And this is when she will smile, not thinking
Of me, but supposing it will not rain.