Missed The Matinee Poem by Robert Rorabeck

The satellites are not out yet,
And I can’t hardly spell: My mothers
In phoenix,
And she is in another world-
If I photographed her, you might be
Surprised, but it would just be another
Tourism- It would hardly do- The
Letters in stone,
The stones on the grass, the grass is
Mowed; the wind shifts lightly through
The cut blue grass, the ants kneel
And pray in extended expedition,
and through the upraised boughs
An airplane leaps yet through the failing sky:
So many legs and hearts on that trip,
Two for each,
Some touching,
Some sharpening one another;
the sky is a newly eaten shell,
Like the world converted on the other side
Of the canal,
Cultivated and fertilized and romanced:
Still frighteningly beautiful when it is emptied:
As if I were yet a boy folding airplanes,
The ceiling fans chained in operatics,
Speaking domesticated Latin and the
Stray car driving every so often
through the well choreographed
Ululations of that nostalgic suburbia,
Not knowing that every other thing out there was
Tipped in poison;
And that is why the chameleons steadily change,
The girl kisses the boy in matching uniform,
The toys rest with fleas;
They close their chapter books and handily walk
In doors: My sisters fight on the green rug
In front of the filibustering television. Mom and dad arrive
Home with a bucket of fried chicken,
Exhausted and apologizing that they should
Have missed the matinee.