The Venom Of Rattlesnakes Poem by Robert Rorabeck

She doesn’t move away: the fact is that she likes playing with
Him:
As the plastic cowboys and Indians say their goodbyes:
While my useless wishes are selling their many reasons to the
Widest advertisements in the sky;
And when they get on home, deluded by wild scuppernongs:
The soft pigeons cooing on the fences,
Their masters heady from alcohol, and their arcs swaying,
Holding out two by two for the pitch perfect rainbow:
While the animals nuzzle,
Waiting for the first radio broadcast- like a new color to arrive
With unadulterated fanfare through the jungle:
As I make love to anonymous girls through the feverish testaments
Of my burned down youth;
As new words arrive, drunkenly- as if Christmas trees careening into
Other holidays,
As the stock still youth are holding hands and chewing the insides
Of their lips,
As if it is heavily snowing at a baseball game where no one else arrives;
And yet I can hear my entire muse weeping for me across
The country of our little hemispheres: or at least across the train tracks,
As she buys things to mark herself
And to make love to the venom of rattlesnakes at least until help arrives.