Entering (The Shift) Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I look down from
The red balcony,

Oh,
So red!

The masked assassin
Spies his mark,
The lovers lie naked in blood.

The stage is open
Under the trees,

Even the aspens are naked
Shedding golden coins,
Blanketing the coyote’s skin
The blue ants are feasting....

I must hurry into work,
For the world is about to
Enter a tunnel:
And blind, and blind....

The pressures are growing distant:
There is blue

(when she comes near)

And there is red,

(when she walks away)

Both of them entering blindly

Forward and away
The motion of the azure sea
And the crimson tide:
Rapidly

A Cadillac
A shoe,
A crab scuttles before the sea.
The only sea.
The sea,
Pulling back its
Curtains
Reveals her slender leg
Rippling over the earth....