The Ballrooms Of Their Prison Yard Poem by Robert Rorabeck

It’s good to know that somebody likes me,
Over the bridge and under the canopy
The housewives flee with their houses following;
And the moon swings,
Like a child, like a sickle;
But the earth is well and covered with gold
And is now all laid out enthralled with panoply
With the gold fish symbolizing the easiest to capture
Of its stories:
Like cats and dogs in rain showers, look at what we
Have done to it, like a one eyed cat peeping in
A seafood store,
Like an otter spying on housewives tanning topless
In their backyard easements, leaping atop of
Alligators like stones to cross a grassy river;
She said that when she bought the tree she didn’t know
That it would bare fruit-
The bitter stars the natures of a languorous religion
On the borders of the world of sugarcanes and rum-
The beautiful women go floating there,
Back and forth like flags of surrender,
Dancing bare shouldered through the ballrooms of their
Prison yard.