So Many Green Talismans Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Now at home with your children- who are stranded
Like tigers through the palmettos;
Leaving me just the old cenotaph of a cicada on the nape of
A cypress:
Maybe one which was brushed by a conquistador while in the middle
Of taking an Indian princess:
Alma- and the colors of your flag are as verdant as I have seen
Pictures of you in a dress
At your sister’s communion; and by tomorrow I will not have
To say these things to you at all:
I will just look at you as bashfully as a freshman thrown into
A wide opened ballroom;
And very soon I wont even have to be there at all:
And you will forget me like a fire after it is done with its handy work,
Stroking itself back to its home and children,
Going out at night in the uncanny worship of all the soft walls of
Department stores,
Never even realizing that I am right here, unbounded with the
Metamorphosis of a knight protected by so many green talismans,
And always up in the morning before anyone,
And painting the walls of his house with your favorite colors.