The Dinner Bells Of Night Fall Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Shielded in a grotto where the mother sleeps-
In cerulean pearls the waves are greedy for- waiting for her to
Climb up from the shoals,
To show her breast and tail- as long and fine as the tailfin
Of a commercial jetliner
While my own mother is not home: her bosom a fort for
Delirious sailors:
While she lays her head and douses beside a truer virgin-
As the generals come, wanting to be suitors-
And farmers who grow roses
Wait on the cliffs, the wind clapping them and making them look
Like fools- until the lunch trucks come around
Driven by beautiful Columbian women who will accept
Their hearts as souvenirs while the men who bore them
Daughters drag nets of vanishing perfume across
The aqueducts of embittered countries-
And step out a litter further only to give all that they have
Earned to the mermaids who, inclined to
The elements, changing their minds before the dinner bells of
Night fall, and all together, swim away.