Her Careful Procession Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Gloomed ambition sequined in a dress,
Brought in sunset to the bank of the canal,
Where the crippled people have been drinking
And enjoying the insouciant feelings they don’t
Care to delve into:
They look at her as if she is in solvency,
Going down to feed the mouth of reptiles, but
I’ve known her for the better part of a trifecta
Of decades, and she has never slid her hands into
His pouch to feel his cool hearts:
But he is there all the same, though none approach
To catch his name, and the darting palavers of his
Watery dictions, the softy spawning randomness
Of her hands cupping his throat;
Perhaps, while we are turned away, and the furthest
Shadows creep, she drinks of him, and her heart runs
On all cylinders, but that is a secret thing only a woman
Must know, for already she has a last name which
Is neither his, nor known to us, but
She must go back to it, sitting far into the empty green
Living room; As she turns, and stretches up the slope,
There is a dollop of mud on her ankle, and a bouquet
Of burs in her trail, but she fails to notice,
And we do not speak to her, for that is beyond our reason,
Though we have seen her come down beside us
Unfailingly to peer into the waters unrestive jaunts,
To that nest where bares the coolness of his throat as
He awaits her careful procession.