The Other Side Of The Canal Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Children in their lithographs making oblong
Rounds,
Girls young and beautiful and yet stranded like
Upside down terrapin at the racetrack
Far a field where I stop out of the way to buy
My beer-
This night has been weeping a pittance, and I went
And saw a movie alone with all my other
Bachelors;
Then outside in the play of cold opium tresses;
And I want to spill myself into her, all those girls
Whose minds have left their bodies:
Who have spruced up the place and then left like
Fair weather to confront secret affairs:
Gaunt young men who sit behind them in the pews
On Sunday,
Whiling the skies away where airplanes are like
Crucifixes, and visa versa;
And I can see the lizards that no one else can see;
So the day is over, and I am waiting again for my parents
To make love,
As I too begin to dream of girls and little children who
Are not real anymore, but so persistently turn their
Heads to face me from the ice-shaven dunes,
I have no choice but to sing to them
While the alligators await for me on the other side of
The canal, knowing what they do.