El Agere Poem by Robert Rorabeck

El agere becomes willful at dusk,
Chapping the buttocks of the canyon,
Spinning pools of light like children until they
Tip over the cliffs, and string into the glossy waters-
I have laid on my back for hours atop the teal carport
Of mildewing golfers, some things on my mind,
And listened to the jangle of spurs, the friction of tires
On the minute and abrasive surfaces, like some sort
Of rhyming code- Each hair stiffens under the shadow of
The palms, and I write a note to you and stick it in crease
On the roof, just an hour before the hurricane-
El agere comes leaping like a lion from its Atlantic cave,
Circling around me and thrashing all the oranges out of the tree,
Pushing a toddler on a plastic tricycle apoplectically down
The avenue, taps out the windows like a mad lover, an eel
Who has sickly slithered in the zoetropic shadows of his
Wife’s adultery- El agere came about me too in high school
As I slept in the effluvious oil slick under the crippled bus,
Thought of you in mirrors that were blind, came and
Whispered to me from the trees, that I would soon be old,
And as lonely as I am now- That was the day you came and
Sat with me in Latin class, and asked me if I was okay,
When I would not look up, for I knew who you would become,
Taken by el agere in swift degrees, fluctuating like a paper
Doll far across the inebriated ocean el agere soups up, for
Now all my hair is gray and even now el agere is leaping out-
Side my glass door, dripping cones from pine trees, shoving dusk into
The hills, and you are far away in pictures of motes and
Caesuras, learning to love the men el agere has pushed you
Towards laughing, like a spore plucked in season from a garden
I once attended with my eyes: Now el agere comes draping
The roofs, and eddying highways, and I have asked him to take
Me to you, but he only laughs a violet radiance, like tiny wheels
Rushing on concrete, he exhales that you have gone shopping,
Dressed all in new things and boys, you couldn’t possibly
Remember the day you sat next to me in class, laughs el agere....