Down The Open Road Poem by Robert Rorabeck

By the pictures of their high heels,
And laughing up past the carefully grafted cinderblocks
Who happen up from the lone and dusty yard-
The goldfish and the beaded curtains while a young couple
Is fabulously in love, and he is bleeding out children from her,
Like specters
That flicker behind the marionettes as they dance from the house
And over the canal to the land of the talking cats;
And afterwards, while he is in snoring recess, she goes out beside
The orange canopy and the Shetland ponies, and kneels
In the grotto of the carport and the washing sheen:
Beside her an uncountable number of toads ululating in the aloe
And discarded rebar,
As from over her shoulder, thousands upon thousands of
Hungry and bare-chested can be seen leaping across the barbed
Wire garments,
Counting their blessings and their tear their feet on the empty
Seashells compacting along down the open road,
Until they find shelter in the bosque across the street with the
Cenotaphs of conquistadors, and the pornographies of junked cars.