Never Around Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Aspens are all naked now,
And I am not around to see them- to let them
Remind me of you
Lost on your dime store moons:
Just little breathable things, as round as a suburban
Yard;
If I were bound on some narrow gauge railroad
I’d go to the concession car and buy over priced
Hotdogs and caramel corn,
And crack some expensive farts and think of you,
Because that is why I am getting around,
To climb those mountains who are your sleeping sisters,
While you as well are sleeping even as you
Move around, selling things;
But you transcend your assets,
But I am not around to see them, and my dogs are chained
In the yard even as the trees are shivering,
And the airplanes brush their continuous hands through
The tops of their lustrous canopy,
And somewhere above the town the sky opens up to
Blow your hair in wimpled concessions,
While in high school I crawled like a featureless terrapin
Underneath the broken down school bus and made it my
Shell,
And loved you even though you were never around.