Over Mountains And Barbed Wire Poem by Robert Rorabeck

This kind of reason feathered in the eyes
Of a peacock
Strutting impertinence through the ferris wheels
Of our memory:
You kissed my mouth before the albino eyes
Of an alligator
That most certainly was; but what of us-
Strange infatuation of two species
Becoming undone underneath the elusive
Heavens
While all of the white mothers are out with their
Children,
And you remain so guarded- indeed we lasted
For approximately five hundred and eight days;
But I can see that you will never leave your husband,
Even though he cannot see all of my scars-
And so we come to an end,
Like the amputations of a windmill brought to
The surface,
As sailors made to suffer through the blindness of
A lighthouse- it becomes like this-
Lies that only whisper of truth- octopi,
And strange, giant cats in their darkness-
You were my muse for many starless nights,
But now all of the appendages of my body
Spread this ink in fear for its very life-
And I run across the hotels and their blinking yards-
Of sleeping Indians and of bobcats:
Away- away- over mountains and barbed wire,
Fearing the thoughts of love for you that
Still remain inside.