Underneath The Stars Poem by Robert Rorabeck

When I get really good I cant even spell that
Alma prefers her family,
And goes back to them like something trained, or
On a string,
The way a wary canary tries to flee the vaporous mine
Underneath the stars in their make believe
Chicken wire, in the invisible fences in which we made
Yards for them,
And all called up in a chorus of pretty girls who were
Evicted from even prettier cars;
And it was as if the night came gushing like the defeat
Of a dam over all of those roads and intersections,
And crawled up the fences and the mezzanines
To say its chaos of promises
To the half light of the bedrooms arranged in the phantasms
Of lace, to the girls
Where they’d just had at dreaming away all of the sailors
Into a song,
And it was so delightful that they were hardly bothered at
Awakening;
In fact, the peals in the pinched flowers of their
Saltwater clams were still humming.