Darkened School Yard Poem by Robert Rorabeck

If I knew how cars could park through the city
And into dark,
And the love they had made inside of them, the evaporation
Of steamy legs;
Then I would also know what it felt like to be a patrol
In a long sleek train,
Straight northward to the capital of our brains: Look at the pretty
Monuments rising their contentment;
Follow the leader through the sandbars, following the
Populations of our uncles:
Going prettily ankled through the snow drifts; and the cars park here;
And the cars park there.
Cicadas sound out through the night and they leave their old bodies
Behind stuck to the ornamental cypress of our yards,
The pretty pagan ornaments that housewives never even think about
Nor surrender to:
The jewels of the earth, Precambrian and making love, stuck inside
The distillations of our juvenile throws:
In the parks where the lovers seem to lean on stilts and the stars
Play music,
On violins or dobros,
And there is something always more required, and it is more
Beautiful than this, or a darkened school yard.