The Desirous Wealth Of Their So Deserved Heritage Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I try to get it out,
The still life from the bottle-
Recovered from the sea,
A gift from mermaids or metamorphosed
Conquistadors,
A single consolation that I am losing my art,
And that I should just go to sleep
And wait out this patriotic funeral until all
The ads are all done running,
And the thieves are late at home in trailer parks
Up and down the interstate,
Eating poached apples, and rubberneck turkey,
Dreaming that her clothes might fall off,
Dreaming too of flights to any corner of the
Colloquial universe;
They are wearing the stolen diamonds and
Caveats of ancient mothers-
They have collected and panhandled masked
And taken what all those legs worked so hard for,
Shaven, running like Niagara falls
Next to the gear shifts of doctors and associates;
And in the tamed wilderness the palmettos
Are wet and drooling,
Little kids plastic tricycles are wet and overturned
In the mowed lawns,
And the thimbleful of park is empty and receding
Into the canal,
Which is nothing more than a fancy gutter,
Where the alligator gazes with bright rubies,
Waiting for his next charge,
The little girls run away from fairytales to sink into
Plumping dreams into that deep bed
Like a blushing radish in a salad bowl he has dug
Out for her, to take her permanently away from
School,
And the banishing mothers who feel so naked without
The desirous wealth of their so deserved heritage.