Many Longs Ago Poem by Robert Rorabeck

The flesh of placebo angels luxuriates
On plastic hooks in penny candy and dime
Stores no fish in the world was ever afraid of;
And now I am all excited because I
Wear my father’s pants,
And I get to drive his truck:
And I will go look at houses nearer the beach,
Where airplanes touch and leap and the flashing
Lives of canines catch Frisbee:
I have already been out to see that the parks are
Absolutely full today,
Packed to the teeth with barking families,
Girls always turning away in parade, twirling for the
Fanfares of marmalade;
And I leave, lamenting that I don’t have a bicycle
Nor a true love; and the seed pods whisper in the cold
Front even here,
While the angels hang like dried out homunculus,
Their glow just the jaundice of an absently true pet missing in the pumpkin
Fields,
Like golden story books proven meaningless many longs
Ago.