The Lip Of The Canal Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Hammers in a circus
And little girls with blonde hair: see which way
They are moving,
Notice how they care- lackadaisically through the
Midway: see how they proceed,
While the apples lay rotting in the pastures
Gone to seed:
See her red lips in the playground, or her thoughts
Over a rosy sea:
There she is remembering alone in a classroom
That has abandoned me:
See her there at the elbows of a unicorn:
See her there in the pornography of a rain forest-
She is all of midways, of cotton candy-
Of praying mantis:
So they have painted her on the walls beside the
Wheels and the missing buffalo- they have given
Kisses to her under the pool that the sunlight
Made into diamonds
That the housewives sparkled around, gossiping
As the alligators listened attentively
Underneath the many airplanes
At the lip of the canal.