Rhinoceros’ University Poem by Robert Rorabeck

This spore walks on the open lips of a
Book like a living miniature of
The skeleton of a parasol;
And I think of kissing her in similar toy ways
In the fully enfolded spring of the earth:
We live in the same country,
But I am afraid we see things all too differently;
I live in the clutch of a cloud, come down to go shopping,
Then rise up again with the whimsical identities of nimbus.
She works all night in a bar and kisses the men that
Come in to be served drinks by her,
And the further affections of the rhinoceros’ university;
So this is the silver cut, the almost death,
The poisonous leaf pounded into tea,
Brushed by the lips of someone who knows and
Is too afraid to die: To leap upon the lightninged wilderness,
The scarred beauty above the passionate sea of darkened blue....
She will not come around, for the sun does not reveal her
When it reveals everything; A tributary leading to
The ocean separated by a continent, I cannot touch her,
For I am too afraid of something that must last.