The Halogen Halls Of High School Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I read Thomas Hardy,
Or I ejaculate:
The traffic runs. My teacher
Is not home:
I drink bourbon while rednecks
Chop wood from Australian pines.
I will steal this cup,
And another line. Today was
Thanksgiving, and I tried not to
Think of her, rather the great calm
Of tourism: It didn’t happen,
Even now the planes are leaping,
Like frogs from trees, or her lips
Move upon him, her body quivers in
Bed. Filled with turkey,
After masticating, parts of her body hyphen,
Her hips drape upon him like warm laundry:
There are scientists in California dehydrating
Aquamarine brine from the Pacific Ocean,
And ornithologists driven deep into the
Phoenix desert, sweaty and flushed. In
Shorts they go out looking for her,
Just the tiniest shadow posed over the lip
Of a flowered sequoia,
Like a girl in a miniskirt tipped over the
Water fountain
Hydrating softly
In the halogen halls of high school.