Their Promises So Close To The Sea Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I want to love you, so I paint you on a canvas behind my house—
Beneath the infant orange tree where the ghosts get stuck
Like kernels of popcorn in a mouth—
And the clouds hang over, building up on this side of the canal
As if she was a mountain,
But there is nothing there—but maybe it is the sugar cane the
Haitians and the Guatemalans are burning—
Bringing tears to the eyes of the bus driver and the crocodiles—
While boys who play baseball from middle school are no longer
Sure they exist,
And I can look back upon them—
Reverence, as if my senses are the divine incenses of a Ferris
Wheel of zoos—beautiful brothers get on the road again—
As airplanes take off above—
Neither of them are too involved with the actually spellings of
Things, but when it rains, both take shelter,
One in the heavens above the clouds—
And the other beneath the concrete overpasses that keep
Their promises so close to the sea.