Imaginary Real-Estate Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Baudelaire is finished and already out in the yard.
I would say it was green, but he has done something
To it, so that only he might properly describe
The hue of its dying;
and all the stars are like shrinking violets as
The busses pull up, yellowing,
and the lions roar, meaning to yawn.

Look at all of this, where we’ve laid our heavy stakes,
And fashioned for ourselves a finite space which needs
Governing and river boats,
And a psychiatrist who listens to her and takes notes
While she lays back under the whirring patina
Of the ceiling fan
and pretends that she’d rather not be
Our wife, and that her legs do not contribute to the playground
Violence and bullying of our microwave childhood,


Or that all of this is something awful,
Even while the organ plays in church, and afterwards
Kids dressed for Easter swing above the hill,
Cuffing ants, eclipsing all the
The rows of fine marble stones, like song birds with bad habits
And tobacco stained fingers; and eyes which linger
Without reason or jurisdiction, even upon cousins,
Especially upon them:

Freckled apples and kittens,

Lines following in a parade of costume sailors.
I prefer only females saluting each other and tipping their
Negligeed plumage:
Rootbeer floats and strawberry shampoo,
I dream about them underneath the finest
Cross in the oldest city, I give them their own paragraphs
And supporting rolls in tinkering novels.
I do so much for them that I even clean the dishes,
And take the thorny pie out of the suicide ovens of distinguished
Female poets with stains on their cheeks, like tears on fresh ink,

I leave the air condition on as the traffic hurries to the
Places I am afraid to contribute to- A younger serpent cuts its
Way through the grass heading to drink from an evil flower
Growing from the nostril hole of that francophone beast:
I don’t even get a dial tone; but use the spare dictionary as a step
Up to kiss her. Except that the pedestal she was put upon
Has gone empty, and someone has stolen the only car from the
Sky blue carport:

A tarmac hot and empty, and somewhere further off
Petty crime and hesitant sirens,

The sprinklers are jewelling the yard;
Teeth ache in my jaw like pearls in a clam, the newspaper is
Wet: all the energy is escaping like words improperly used,
Like mathematics developed instead for feeling as for effect:
Like tourists out on holiday picnicking distinguished by a
Religion which really isn’t theirs to speak about;
The bulls are tearing through the China shop,
The waves are leaping,
And I am holding hands with a little girl,
And, don’t you know that I am all alone.