The Crepescule Of Shanghai Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Chartreuse savior, trinket of my eyes—
Coming to me in the crepuscule of Shanghai:
My purgatory sees its conclusion.
A knife flits like a butterfly over the flesh,
Whilst all of the species are dying—

I saw you wilting at the bus stop,
But I was not going to school.
I turned around and hid with my camouflage:
Palmettos and hollies,
A sweltering holiday with indentations
OF books lined across
Narcolepsy's flesh—

A canal dug by man sees either way:
Slow and of geometric length,
Prisms of reptiles that become destroyed
In the amphibian flecks:
Once lost to itself, a coin skips across the bank
And into someone else's pocket.

Light is a dagger to the torch's shield.
A battle upon the merry-go-round of another year—
Intrusions bloom like store-front women,
And the newborn hearts, like children, take the hand
Of the warmest kiss.