Retreating Butterflies Poem by Robert Rorabeck

When school disperses the many brilliant promises
Recorded in her playgrounds that
Remain unknown- even in the middle of the day,
When truants pass across the canal,
And all the sky is green and as curious as an
Arsonist learning a wooden violin-
Where will we go, but across the shoulders of the
Playgrounds,
Forgetting even our peers with angelic bone structures:
And leaping as if waves ourselves, burning down
The cul-de-sacs, telling lies to unicorns that have
Wound up as housewives:
That even they will soon be leaving us, as our little
World evaporates- as if all the parts of our bodies
Surcease, lying in the shallows
Reduced to the brilliant minerals of wedding rings
And retreating butterflies..