Of An Immortal Hell Poem by Robert Rorabeck

You love him: the storm chirps, the liquor drizzles
Of my lips like rain:
My grandmother is dead in Michigan, but at least she will
Never have to be dead again:
Oh, the soft stone, who speaks the finality of the last words,
But to the greater generations,
Like the storm succession of ants in storm drains,
There is no record of their unrequited love, or of their mindless
Hate:
Their many-legged wars on valentines day, or to muses which were
Their progenitors to which they will never care to write again
For:
They have their own sandbars, and their shelves in the recesses
Of the long-jawed barracudas,
While you have your Almas that are worth fighting for:
The pretty songs the depths of her eyes give off like gunfights on the
Frontier,
Like monster movies so deep in the night that nobody has energy
For staying up for;
And Sharon is still selling her wine, just trying to survive,
While the Rocky Mountains like the undone Titans of lore line up for
Her:
Like boys with sticks against picket fences line up for her,
While the ponies run and the orchards bloom finally into oranges,
As round and as perfect as unicorns who are blushing
For their immortal batters who are even now rounding home with
A satchel full of letters like butterflies in the foot traffic
Of the lower level of the heavens where the feral and pagan boys
Can still throw their paper airplanes without any prayers or
Any other fears of an immortal hell.