The Soft Antlers Of Their Deeply Slumbering Beasts Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Opening up what scars there are to feed
The hungry cats- the places that open with milk and
Red decorations:
Now this: that my friends are all gone, and now that I
Speak one too many languages
That are all drowned out underneath the roar of the
Unearthed airplanes
Going somewhere on Sundays: going from church to
Buy icecream:
All dressed up and in a fever of words that come swift,
And then words that linger:
And the shops beside the road, and the old lovers trying
To stay warm underneath the overpasses:
The stories and contests of fables-
The talking animals of my clandestine resorts-
Here they all are in a classrooms holding a caucus full of
Feral retorts:
But the substitute is so pretty- and she is so fine:
She makes them stutter as she makes them all add up
Six plus nine; until the workaday world is over,
And all of the children are safely returned to their mothers:
As the thieves are returned to the sea-
And the cats reawaken into the graveyards beneath the constant
Curses of swing sets underneath the unmovable mountains
Who speak underneath the rains of how I moved
Across them- and they lifted me up to catch a glimpse
Of the heavens- and then they surceased into caesuras,
As the rainstorms mat their grasses,
And the soft antlers of their deeply slumbering beasts.