The Fault Of Rattlesnakes Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Baby swim up to the sun—in your sweet
Boat:
This is your bedroom, and you are dreaming on
The other side of the world—
I am still your husband, and come to the lips—
They have vanished after two weeks:
You work in a graveyard—who are you
Singing your drinks too:
I don’t want you to be who I am—
Like doorknobs cast as droplets to the stolen
Bicycles—
Beautiful, confusing through the shallows—
And children who are always going to
School have never been here:
Her shoulders, spotlights through a forest
And, yes—Runaways—Like silent deer:
Droplets of blood on her cheeks
Signifying the weekend—
She doesn’t have to show up—
The airplanes come and then fly away again:
They are wishes that can never have,
Leaping over a garden that is at the fault of
Rattlesnakes—
Outside of our mother’s house in a kind
Of spell, which is where we live.