Elements Of Echo Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Liquor is bright,
And the world is silent in its go around,
And the least things have the most to say,
And it is unbelievable I am still here-
Though I am not here,

But cradling the weight of her thoughts after
Some midnights, letting the skeins overspill
The spirit of our high school,
As the diminishing coyotes howl,
As the plated alligators lurk,
Sometimes I curl up to her like this,

Though she is not here tonight,
Though she was not here yesterday,
And to those classrooms there is only subtraction,
And the kind of tricks they pull forth from long hats,
The gentlemen who love her toothily,
Though it may be far along after midnight,

And the liquor is like a chlorined pool,
And tomorrow I will be collecting money from a Navajo
And carrying on to Aztec, NM, and on into Moriarty,
I have a song to sing because my fingers would trace her spine,
Each plate a cusp of her construction,
A bridge over thoughtless waters,

Though I am better like this dreaming of Latin,
I would sting myself by her cursory lips and inattentive meanings,
Though she is pressed into him as a peninsula between great lakes,
I can still sing into her these elements of echo,
As if this were the great depression, and the transitory landmass
Of sugary tramps and weekends of flea markets,
Though she is not here,
Though I am not here,

I am here, and singing her again a song of meaningful quiet
As the clouds migrate the blushing herd of their extinction.