The Allegory Of The Sea Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I write for epitaphs on headless graves.
The wind kisses my fingers affectionately.
She wishes that I would shave;
She is as junoesque as the burnished sea,
And as clichéd: I said she should live in
The woods, by the pummel of a dead fallen
Tree, like a coffin still breathing,
And by night a busty epiphany, and opal
By which I stand erect and salute;
I mount by way of root, but waking up
She swims away, back to her bedroom
Far in the city, her eyes going wavering,
Wavering; awakened, she is the allegory
For the sea, doused in salt, yet living;
Her lips the well-meanings of what people
Mean to say; there nests an albatross, yet
To make house calls around our mast doused
In sun. I only wonder if I might stay my hand,
Or damn us all by kissing her.