In The Eye Poem by Robert Rorabeck

You breastfeed your daughter in the hedgerows of
Dear gypsum
In a still life beside the unruly stream where Joe’s
Brother drowned.
Then at night when I drive to the movie theatre,
I see you there as well,
Sharon,
Luxuriating beside the very same waters as white as the
Housewife of Bath,
But your daughter has grown and is playing jacks
And eating wild huckleberries:
And there is maybe an airplane or a helicopter over your
Left shoulder,
But I know it is only a hallucination, and like an unwanted
Tattoo it has nothing but
Superfluous meaning;
And I curl my toes like cats tails in the darkness,
And I bight the inside of my cheek for you as you skin a deer;
And you play pinball, and you are very adept at
Everything you set you mind on;
And in the next vision you’ve constructed a swing set;
Your daughter is even older than you are,
You look like sisters:
You are studying the periodic table: Your husband has a cane
And an eye patch- There is a sense that you’ve all been
Stealing things to survive:
The river has sunken like a precious vein underground,
And there are worrisome musics in the darkness, and maybe wolf’s
Eyes;
But everything is bright around you:
I suppose that is the photosynthesis you’ve always had in the
Girls bathrooms of your jaw structure;
And I just want to fly away and partake in the feast of your nectar;
Like a little butterfly in the little patches of soot
Kicked over from your picnic the rains seemed to destroy;
But then I see you again at some reststop along another very different
Rose, catching you out of the corner of my vision
When I couldn’t stand to look myself in the eye.