Used Book Stores Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Into used books stores in the bosoms
Of those mountains—I am finally going down,
I am falling,
As if into a movie theatre after it has been shut down—
And the strange weapons of our defenseless enemies have
Finally awakened—
And this is the blooming sensuality of the armpits
Of their gardens—
This is finally the peaceful comfort of the getaway
Cars-
Cars clouded with women who worship the billboards—
Cars clouded with the statures of the nameless
Bouquets given each Sunday to the manikins in
Their graveyards—
And you know who they are, into all of those places
Who don’t breathe to survive—
And other perpetuities of wishing wells, hung upon
A thread, the fireworks well-displayed, or who
Are duds—gathered together or who are swept up
Across the desert—
And the mountain lion yawns bored by the blue-eyed
Banshee—and eventually the fire-scarred mountain
Blooms—as if you knew my mother on her birthday
And she has stepped towards us—
And as if she was still right here,
As if these were the things saying a ceremony over
Her very name.