The Embalmed Playroom Poem by Robert Rorabeck

All my toys are bruised or dying-
They’ve done their fit between the spent Australian
Pine needles windswept on
The cerulean carport- and the tortoises are
Slow in their crosses of naturalistic love-
They are both each others’ lazy bosses;
But she is not there, as I think she should be there
All sweltering in her skirt-
Some gymnastic cheerleader, or her mother a hurdling
Stewardess:
It is best when the play comes across with double taps
Of liquor to the dry lips-
And then the sun caracoles and goes along whistling
Along its way,
And death really isn’t no thing- and the paper snowflakes
Are all original and tapered in the poetic hyacinths-
And grandmothers have all resurrected from
Their graves-
And Michelle is there, coming down like a wrecked kite-
We’re playing with Lincoln logs,
And then I snap rubber bands at her tits- the plasticine
Cowboys and Indians just sit there under the
Ceiling fan’s Aristotelian rotations-
They wont do anything we won’t fist decide for them,
And when I’m alone I’ll ejaculate in a sad swath of green,
And real airplanes will leap and fly so
Carelessly in the sky-
And moths will populate the window like paper spectators,
Not knowing why they should ever want in, but wanting;
And love will lose its ridiculous bloom,
And all the grandmothers will die
Back into the darkness of the embalmed playroom.