That We Ought To Be Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Pulling their joyous scars far away:
Where will her sisters go, across the dirty roads
Overblown with minnows and the color blue
Diminishing into the occultish forest where the dragons
Roll the dice;
And there are little holes who widen where children
Are always disappearing into the exponential dungeons,
Growing muscles and beards:
There are continents down there, and volcanoes,
And I carry dozens of roses barefooted and right over
Their graves,
While my great uncles water ski; and I can feel her blowing out
The wishes on the back of my neck-
And she makes it so that I feel like I don’t have to rob banks
Anymore:
My, Alma- my savage balm: and very soon it will be
Christmas: she will be my tannebaum, and the trailer barks will
Sway their corrugations underneath the winter sun,
Just as the waves go and the windmills. And the new immigrants
Arrive gun weary from Mexico:
They are no longer conquistadors, but they are returning
Our continent again to the brown aridness which grew so many
Quixotic mirages
Who from which the rockets are always shooting off in gold mines
Of heroic clouds
Who many or may not be pregnant, but I hope that she still loves
Me anyways,
As the families hold hands underneath the roller coasters, becoming
More and more anemic, kissing and embracing,
So very soon even their pictures will disappear and we won’t
Have to look at anymore movie pictures of their holidays in the
Day-laboring orchards to have to make guesses upon who we
Are, or at least who we have decided that we ought to be.