What They Have Become Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Woebegone, the headless knight flies over his battle:
Like brown stems, he will grow anew:
Dictations of my thoughts for him,
Waving at the panhandle- conquistadors eating their
Own horses
And building rafts underneath the thoughtless processions
Of dead windmills-
Sand dunes in her armpits, and panthers in her tongue-
Her eyes look up so brown and long
At this- Siamese tigers leaping through duality of burning forest:
And this is what they have become.
The children play with rattlesnakes- and candles fill up
Their boats,
Rain washes through the empty gullies of forests-
Shed antlers collect like horned drift wood- and the naked kings
Bow and kiss the mud.
Their sisters embrace them earnestly- and this is what they have
Become.