Going Back To Florida Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Going back into Florida no longer
Seems like anything real, but a furtive play
That comes alive between the crowded shadows,
The sun pours down its thespians in a sheen of
Performing limpidity, they are all brightly grinning
And well-paid, the nostalgia of a script,
And it seems to me as if I should be on an airplane
Crop-dusting over the red-headed caps of semis,
Coming around her to see if she won’t grow up and
Be my unsuspecting bride, because I have snacks
But there is no leggy stewardesses, and several times
A minute I glance repeatedly up into the mirror image,
Trying to believe I was never wounded; but it is not
Possible: I am unwound and scarred and built upon
The tangles of a children’s fable, but yet here I continue
Down into her, and the sun does not go away, but shines
Down there like the fertility of a young woman rebellious
In her puberty: I should not have her, unless I steal her,
But she is gone at night, the best time for thievery,
And they have hidden away the womb of her everglades
Back behind the entrepreneurs selling those specific ploys
Which has led her away, and crowded the otherwise nubile
Body; and yet I will do good work in her while I have time,
But she has stopped taking notice of me, for I have not
Ventured up to her lips for so many years, and when I leave
She will not acknowledge me; even still, I join that train who employs
Upon her their industrious revelry, and will love the flatness
Of her clays and limestone which carry her to the sea, and
Settle her under that caress; so should be my way, until
I have nothing more to sell, and leave off her beauty, like
A fish breeding back up his granite river, evacuating the humid flat-chested
Cradle, so that she might not be disturbed in her salty boudoir,
But return attention to the sky, braided by the tonal rays
Of sun, and the seabirds who speak and gossip; her sisters
Who honor her there even amongst the tourists,
With bright and stinging kisses upon her dun flesh.