Expectations Of Metamorphosis In Insectoid Degrees Poem by Robert Rorabeck

How do you like yourself now that
They’ve named you the new class ornithologist?
You keep your lucky cricket next to you
To get advise so that they don’t turn you back
Into what you were before, that thing of wood
Who slept in my bed- I know all about that,
And the tricks you pulled, the common average day
Tricks with simple geometries: I look you up
When I’m feeling lonely, too lonely to carpool,
And the people there, the unwavering faces of all
The gems of high school, all the old and unacquainted
Revelries, the too hard crushes, the mushy encores,
The tricks and the quarter sticks of dynamite lit
Off in the ruddy court just before spring time: Now
Not mostly bachelors and maidens, but crackerjack
Attorneys, air force lieutenants, housewives of umpteenth
Degree: All alike in lettered rows of Christian names old
And new and spotless like gravestones just placed in
The green lawns beside the lonely cypress, and the
Carport: abracadabra, spoken by the race, and there you
Fall alone smack-dab on your face, and my name too,
And her name, and others I don’t remember who the hell
They are, some girls who look too pretty, some guys
In formal snide: All of us are doing so well at our stations,
And we are looking at you, looking to you, and wondering
Where are your collections of psocids, arachnids, tarantulas,
Butterflies, and moths, for shouldn’t they be tacked above
Your head like diplomas with the red ants, the subtle metamorphosis soon
Stymied by formaldehyde- In those cleanly echoing hallways
I so seldom attended, though I’ve probably written more cues
Than anyone in the history of that school, my record is
A lonely stain, a glacial pool, a single set of boot heals clicking
Down the hall, but today, my dear, we have something new,
For we are all here in some sort of science looking at you,
Waiting to see if you have truly changed in what we expected
You to....