Reconciliation Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I put pieces of you on the threshold
Where the frogs wish to dance like
Princes—
And the dogs pirouette with fleas—and
We all wait there to the smell
Of fried chicken and apple pie—
Never knowing when her husband will be
Returning home:
And across the street there is a thicket
And a pornographic tomb:
But very soon it will be built up and built
Up,
So far underneath the heavens’ swoon:
But the conquistadors will remain a pretty word
Lost at the doorstep of your epiphany, if
You ever had one—
If your heart ever swam to me—and told me kisses
Of pretty blue gills—of watercolored mermaids—
In a kaleidoscope of waves that we can never remember—
Just another glass illusion spraying their bosoms
Onto the parapets—where the tourists are looking down
As the airplanes swarm with passengers above them—
Illusions upon illusions—
The sea busted apart and without hope of
Reconciliation.