The Works Of Mark Twain Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Everyday going home to that burning drum
Thumping in a glass
While Israel the Mexican sleeps with his family underneath
The overpass;
And it is such a bright world- so bright that I cannot really see,
Or know the words how to define its most ancient of
Tranquilities;
But it would be something like spending all day long with
Alma in a movie theatre,
And groping her like the deer do glades: deer who were once
Princes, metamorphosized,
And never wanting to go back home again to castles without love,
For they have followed the secret corridors of her eyes and found
Her here, and found her good:
Like today I craned my neck inside Alma’s car and kept her there
For a better part of an hour, out back of the fruiteria where
I was no longer the patronsito, and my father was already
Driving fast through Mississippi,
Making his own shapes out of clouds, never having finished
Tenth grade,
And never needing to finish even one of the works of Mark Twain.