Dodo Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Call and you will find me
Wandering around like a misplaced
Star in Hollywood
Confused and naked in my room.
You can bring your new boyfriend
Down and introduce him to me,
And we can shake hands,
The cordial sort of flesh like
White bread smeared in marmalade,
In simple lies that cross our lips
And tender-hooked eyes,
As the flies sit outside whispering
To the earth that time
Is almost finished baking this pie.
You can see me here as you can,
That surface of the sea,
Sleeping in my shell. You can see
That part of me and walk away
And make love to my stranger relatives
On far distance spheres,
In the buzzing cities where humanity
Shelters its fear,
And goes fornicating around
As instinctually as koala bears in Sidney,
Fearing extinction,
The Dodo Bird, grandfather’s hungry coffin.
You can do all those things
That trickle outwards shallowly.
Sure, you can see me in my room,
And I will shake hands with you.
I will even give you my autography,
Because you want to be my fan;
But I am not really here. I am near
The end of things, watching the world
Blown around on a string,
As an infant god plays in his
Crib on the edge of the Arctic Sea,
A kite tugging to be free in the hands
Of a vagrant king. I could whisper so many
Little things to your lips up from my core,
But these are just the shallows,
The night crawlers in the shoals.
Down in the nocturnal depths the
Grand things speak in blind gestures,
The unmentionable behemoths
Guarding the golden mermaids,
The greater whole of me
I shall never unveil.