Beneath The Ground Poem by Robert Rorabeck

The dog looked at me with eyes of
Happy oysters,
While the road was too busy going both ways:
And the barmaid slung the alcohol
Across both her brown and brindled
Shoulders:
Where is she now? Where has she fallen to?
Like a geode kicked out of school—
Like an unrecognizable park between two
Houses lost in the forest on the other side
Of the road—
The beavers build their dams between her
Breasts,
And the mountains weep their lactates
Beneath her eyes—
And comets are barrettes in her hair,
Speaking of the beautiful luxury bedding in
Her future:
I can tell her nothing: when I step outside,
I vanish in the sunlight—
And the traffic vanishes both ways in its individuated
Crowds:
Going somewhere to games and churches—
Little boys hold on to their delusions at the bottom of
The slope,
Like hypnotized chickens riding atop soft shelled
Turtles—the grave open to them at both ends—
Their ancestors in the amusements parks above the sky
And beneath the ground.