The Thorns Of That Rose Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Wreathed in a shipwreck beside the glorious holds
Of the old fort,
With tourists coming around, openchested- pullulating an
Orchestra
And buying icecream:
While down in the sand dunes slathered by the sun,
The misspelled novels that will never sell
Worried over by the rose thorns who also cover up
The dead working girl who will
Go nameless,
As the conquistadors who birthed her into the loins of the
Indian princesses:
Or how you made love here underneath the aloes of any
Resorts: how you rubbed your
Wounds,
And looked at the angels in the lees of their angles,
And fell to your knees and prayed-
And when it rained, and the world turned black,
And the olive leaves giggled, and
The planes drew flat-
How the spaces lingered on or folded up and went home
And made love inside houses where the ghosts spoke like the
Sea’s pestilent foam:
And the Cyclops of a lighthouse was blinded by rays-
And you sat up on the edge of the terra plane and cursed her for
Days- until the sunset came down, and the curtains
Drew closed, and the lips bled red
From the thorns of that rose.