Like A Zoetrope Turning For Lovers Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Day of everlasting just needs rest
From prose and football games; those sad fingers
That act delectably upon the shoulder blades
Of opal treasures;
And I said this all before that it was a trick,
But I might just have been lying-
I am no super sleuth anyhow, the days are dying;
Or they are not:
Housewives think so; they are in their kitchens
Practicing,
Just as their pies are baking in their ovens,
And what of their husbands’ doing? Who cares,
Their daughters bright unawares fully showing in
The last crenulations of the backyard pools;
It seems as if something is burning gloriously,
As if a present is being opened up;
As if to us our first words were returning,
Like airplanes that disappear into the crepuscule returning
From a mailbox with its flag up;
And the cities lay down and beg beneath us, and the houses
Fold up, old lovers move away like origami drifting into
Snow;
And the seasons change, but this is the very same day,
The very first day that I’ve known: a resilient cheerleader
Changing gowns and looking pretty or sullen,
Depending on who’s in town.
Either way, that gal is still putting on quite a show,
The world revolve and changing the complexions of its hemispheres
Like a zoetrope turning for lovers in her childhood’s room.