Mermaids In The Pretty Sea Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Lutes played by satyrs from a graveyard of
Bonfires—
Across the streets, where all of the old pornographic
Magazines are stored:
Across the canal in a world my mother never
Opened her eyes to see:
Words on the wings of chameleon insects
That sleep in the nuptials of the wild
Arboretums:
Beautiful girls who have metamorphosed
Beneath the sand boxes in the land of the gossiping
Cats:
Places I have gone to while sleeping alone
Half of my life away,
Looking down from the second floor of a yellow
Studio apartment,
Watching the lesbians swim like fresh water otters
In a chlorinated exhibit—
The rest of the university spreading its patina
Behind them:
They row against one another as I am going with
A girl I do not love—
They sing songs to one another that do not
Exist anywhere else—
The diurnal dreams of their exhibits lasting
Half a lifetime between my ears—
As a succession of muses cross their airplanes before
My eyes:
Stewardesses who once molted fall to earth
And immediately join the marching band that is
Taking all of the prettiest boys I do not wish to
Remember to see their own reflections
Sleeping with the narcoleptic mermaids in the pretty sea.