The Perfect Example Of Your Species Poem by Robert Rorabeck

How high do you get without stepping up.
How many times can you lose the knife I gave you,
Or ignore my eyes because the wind is
Calling to you like a pilgrim.
And I remember my mother’s forgotten days with
The laundry and the toads in the carport,
The baby blue Lincoln, the pale rabbits
In the clutch we finally had to release with the
Pornography across the street,
The borders of coquina, the sweet tide leaves behind,
The world from the rooftops,
Where the stars are all those silver dollars of
Carnivals,
Shooting off goldfish across the ant mounds of
Kidnappers:
If you watch them very closely, you will see that even
The most insignificant things no how to count;
And I’ve been saving up all week,
So very soon I will by you a tear from the jungle between
The yards,
And you can put it in your purse with your false numbers,
And the other things that don’t touch your heart,
That you give false promises to, that you will never call,
While the churches rise up further and further,
Straining over the Nile, and the soft deltas of all her rivers,
Just to watch the wind take form through your
Hair, turn it into a Cherokee’s panoply,
Or the weathervanes of your forthcoming children,
As the roof of the world forms around you
From the natural voyeurisms created by the perfect example
Of your species.