By The Day Poem by Robert Rorabeck

If it works: but it is broken:
The apple trees in the orchard, the virgin’s token-
And the airplanes upon their wings:
Fly straight over the forts of
Anything, where the tourists mull and the sky crumbles-
The sharks perambulate the sea above that which the sun
Mumbles:
And bumble bees, and silver colored tuna going back
And forth underneath the motor boats in the loch:
Strange delusions of our ancestors going to and fro
From home to work-
And the plans of housewives coming home in the crepuscule,
And the street lights like dimming birthday candles
On the streets of cake whose wishes never end:
Sweet daughters entering in to their boudoirs they must
Soon leave: to find husbands and lovers,
And then children to milk, and to defend: and Christmas trees
In their engorged parlors,
Like the secret but open stings of so many winged fiends
That their friends are allowed to see:
After all of their fairytales have tumbled down their
Curtaining hills; languishing broken and then sweltering like
Kilns into the morning in a valley
Of suburbia- in a hidden graveyard that grows more sweeter
And more cherished by the day.