Haunted By Astronauts Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Scars have windows, as fish have gills,
Clouds have mothers who remind them of
How old they are;
And old boys want to do tricks,
And I pick her daffodils- She puts her hand in
Wet clay,
And the potter’s wheel spins-
And I’ve been thinking of her all day
As the storms trundled in, and rattled the sky
Like an empty coin tin-
She used to believe she could speak to animals,
And kept a very young serpent in her green
Corduroys; he told her she was part Cherokee,
And that was why she was so beautiful-
But it was a different lie than the one
He told me;
And back then, Scott read cards-
And the storks floated s-shaped over the screened
Jacuzzi, the orange tree rustled a piece of
Torn story;
And I slept alone beneath the new born skies,
Practiced witchcraft close to midnight, conjuring
Your eyes: And death was so far away,
Like a long bike ride,
And you slipped so far away, and the moon grew
Fat and haunted by astronauts,
Which meant that god didn’t believe in me,
I guess,
And the snake curled up like incense and told you
You were part Cherokee,
But that was a lie.