Wishes That Disappear Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Trundling of golden marbles
Down the lips of a child or a songbird:
So many words,
So few to mention: new born mothers getting up,
Looking startled,
Shoulderblades and tableclothes as lost blue
As egg shells:
My muse down in the sandpits making love to
Rattlesnakes
In the discombobulated sun: bit of her evaporating,
The steam of a meaningless engine:
They float up so far,
They become wishes that disappear,
And then there is another fieldtrip, her children so
Far down below
Growing less bashful, moving on without realizing
That their mother was once my goddess,
As she also leads them astray.