Into A Whole Other World Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Pretty reddish underbrush,
Scars on a knee in the penumbra of a schoolyard’s
Skirt-
The fires go away after classes, and the busses moon:
The boys have already gone away, flown like artificial
Fireworks, their arms spread wide,
And kissing parks- all the way to Orlando:
Faux conquistadors,
Warm bellied- lit by the moon, and eating pretzels,
They go swinging, kicking their
Heels up over a green rug scattered with pine needles
And bugs,
Just to see up the skirts of stewardesses, just to
Catch nose bleeds up into the ambitious sky,
And then to swing down, shivering, sweating minerals
Off the saints they have seen:
To go home together lost in secrets, to sleep together,
In the tiny bedroom, poor at math,
Masturbating into the shadows that somehow slip out
Again into a whole other world.