Upon The Boughs Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Lapsing like the tides underneath Saturn’s rings,
Into another arena after the dusks of
The world I pretended to know and to read uponâ€"
Days of riches and soft shells served at
Restaurantsâ€"
The plagiarisms of those days cannot go uncountedâ€"
Or the fires they kept in the courtyards underneath
The eyes of the libraries:
It seemed as if the days were growing shorter and
Shorter, as was the wisdom of the men who
Kept themselves thereâ€"though they were no longer
Fighting their own hunger:
Women whom they had remembered from high school
Kept dancing toward them,
Turning into bartenders and stewardessesâ€"
As the lights traipsed across the sky,
Like foxes leaping for fruit
Like nuptials upon the boughs that would
Never bend.