In A Purple Thought Poem by Robert Rorabeck

And then I had you in a purple thought—
It was just like the one they kept around the cemetery
To show off to the old widows and their bystanders:
It was a beautiful cemetery in the middle
Of everywhere—
Across from a flea market, a circus, and a military base:
They trained the men to march and bring to
You plastic flowers—
And the wished for you in the middle of the night
Pleasuring themselves,
While foxes who were not really there, leapt and pirouetted
Underneath their windows—
The waves, not far off, pretending to wait for the
Castanets of the heavens—
The lush pull of the occultism's séances—just across from
The corner deli where the Jewish women overate
And complained—
They complained so much they could hardly remember their
First boyfriends who weren't even Jewish—
And when the grandest of planes dropped almost a
Thousand feet—well then, oh well—
They pulled up the tadpoles just as quickly as the lampshades
To shadows—and grew them into tall gaunt princes
Who were always in love with unicorns but were never very
Good at any sort of baseball—
And I remember you standing outside in the rain watching
You little sister Phoebe go around on a carousel—
My best teacher said it was a symbol for the best kind of
Change—
But—oh well—you are not really here, anyways—
And I am afraid that I am just a character in a dime novel.