To Themselves Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Rubric going off in bed with only a little bit
Of daylight left:
But just the false time, and studying for school:
When it clocks midnight around her wrist,
Everything will change again:
And she will get up only to lie down again:
While the waves roll green across the viaducts, musseling
And smoothing the stones,
Making immaterial things live there awhile, worrisome
Cousins of the banners in the sky-
In a jubilation of evaporating armies whose jingoisms
Will soon disappear:
Dissolving until looking down, finding only you resting in your
Car,
The thieves surrounding you by many possible directions:
And the fairytales growing and telling many marvelous
Lies to themselves.