The Cenotaphs Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Candles fibrillating over the opened mouths of
Crocodiles
And now all of these stanzas come pouring out of the
Velveteen mouths of the delta,
The hurricanes are making love, dancing right atop of
The blue gills in the canal,
As the city eats its own voice, and fireworks explode
In my hand and I figure out that this is
Exactly what I’ve been doing:
When I get up, I will make love and eat lunch again-
My body is a perusal of unicorns:
Siingster down with Alma and her sisters in a cafeteria
I could swear I didn’t know,
And I’ve forgotten how to swim: she doesn’t call me all day:
What is she doing, maybe she has fallen back in love
With him,
While in Florida the trucks seem to be working back up:
Nearing the sky,
A terrible perfume that is made love to by the seagulls and
The blue herrings
The only monuments to dead kings where I live
Across the billfolds of unfortunate colors-
It all unwinds, trying to make myself appear beautiful,
Like a cadaver pillaging sunlight and butterflies-
New and old words reunite with the fire,
And the rest lies in the dunes with the cenotaphs,
Affixed to the crosses the waves have already gobbled.