Defeated By A Casual Angel Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Rather this meadow is vacating-
An esplanade curled at the corners like the
Sly smile of a coy lover-
It is too late now to start anything on fire;
I just have time enough to grab my baseball
Cap
And head off to work-
It is snowing in the oilfields, but the horses
Are watered.
I have holes in my boots, but you are not
My wife,
So I can go along unmended underneath the
Caesuras of power lines:
The men are empty now, the oil pumps are
Iron cradles for palindromes-
There is not a spot of unspoiled sunlight in
All the sky-
And I haven’t seen where my mother is gone.
There is only the memories of smoke
In that theatre which was once raucous and unschooled.
Now envy isn’t even green, and nothing is
Said of your eyes-
Maybe they spill like your lips wasted into the
False atmosphere,
Or they are the reasons why I went away,
Tossed like an AWOL soldier across the hindered
Fields- defeated by a casual angel,
But would not cry.