The Forlorn Waves Of The Earthbound Sea Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Now that my mind is free and I have friends,
And my broken nose is healing beautifully,
I can go out in the yard and count the snow, discerning
Why my sister placed the wedding guests as she did,
Or why my mother is asleep right now with the only
Man she has ever known:
Because their religion is burning as regularly as sugar cane
In the backyard of the sod farms,
And the gray herons are forming acrobatically through the ash,
While she is in the bedroom stroking her hair like an
Angel licking her wounds
And outside her transoms the coral snakes are hatching in between
The egg-like flowers of the plumbago and the aloe
Where my lovers sleep no bigger than snails hanging
From the soft wrists of music boxes whose
Songs are weeping as the green swans go away the same color
As her eyes or of the forlorn waves of the earthbound sea.