The Saltlick Of Seahorses Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Prettying ribbons around a heart—
She is dying in a flea market: around her,
All of the vanishing houses and
The sea:
Getting up tomorrow, tasting on my lips
The salt lick of sea horses:
Their fishtailed homeopathy:
Swooning in the bathrooms between
The classes of my students:
They disappear at an hour’s length:
They go home,
Dividing like starfish—they all know their
Way home,
And they go that way,
Like intelligent rays escaping the sun,
Biting their lips
Too self conscious to talk back to
The heavens that birthed them in their yesterday.