Plastic Flowers Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Little broken birds with broken
Wings
Never to return to homes
Or arks—
They fall right here,
At the feet of leopards
And pizza parlors
And other places
I would prefer to live:
After my second child is born
And I have shaken all of the remnants of
Muses out of my head—
And then, in the perfect anonymity of
Used book stores
I can grow a beard or, stepping outside,
Show my scars to the moon—
At least, nearing the end,
I will be with my imperfect wife
In the bosoms of mountains—
The muses I began with—
In the snows—
And I will languish in anonymity
That was clan destined,
Tossed towards the lakes like the
Pornography of a rusted chassis—
Like the uneaten rind of
A cherry pie—
I will languish with the half feral
Dogs and the floppy discs—
And somehow, in the middle of the
Night, we will take on an adventure game,
While the alligators bask in the
Glows of the canals
Of the tropical amusement parks
And zoos
Where only my dayglow shadows remain—
And I will make my peace from the tippy-top
Of the conifers—
From there I will sniff up the skirts
Of stewardesses
And I will hang on for the ride,
Hoping that she comes down the chimney in
Time for chistmas—
And even if she is mythological,
Hoping that she at least buried some diggable
Arrowheads
Around the circumference of my perimeters
So at least I will not have to steal the plastics flowers
From atop of her make-believe grave.