Forecasting The Storms Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Animals love it when the grasses grow,
Unattended what is supposed to be taken care by men,
Where serpents swim so patterned along the
Uncomplicated prestidigitations of precious darlings;
As men love it when there is liquor or a new
Interesting woman in the house; but what am I doing,
When I’ve cried myself to sleep again in embittered
Cities coming down: coffins are in the heart of things,
Mausoleums for great generals or more successful sisters,
But I don’t think I’ve failed again, but thrown a little salt
Into the open wounds like in the science fictions where
The ants are tremendous and we can take it out to the parking
Lot- Grandmothers are thieves open bloused and
Waiting in the spliced shade of the palmettos for some
Mysterious stranger; and I am a wreck without my liquor
With no need for more tattoos because of the proliferation of
Some more scars, unpublished, having no care for the
Professors and their leafy tenements: this blood is only
Condiments- the arrows are glued felt; the woman who is
A harlot only an unoffending Christian dressed herself that
Way for the evening’s stage: These snowflakes are paper,
Her lover someone she saw on television; and alligators can
Cry. In fact they are doing it now all up and down the empty
Swing sets of my neighborhood, dressed in the moon’s ridiculous
Penumbra waiting for the children to come out and forecast the storms.