The Ghosts Poem by Robert Rorabeck

As you work in lights hanging over
An empty bedroom, soon I will be a teacher in
A high school all of my peers left
A decade ago
There still will be: the baseball diamonds,
The fields of green alligators,
The lunch rooms, and the sing - song truancy:
And I will find a way again to
Forget myself unconventionally:
The echoes of footfalls like raindrops,
The students of a mind that they go home to
Singing to their televisions at a steady trot:
And if I skip my own classes to light off fireworks,
To remember her shallow tails as the memories
Remember me,
Then I will be the thing who is still there,
Like a monster with a beautiful face who never
Was asked to leave for the tundra of Russia
Or Antarctica- and the music will play
Slowly across the desks of graffiti
And the sun will spin, illuminating all of the ghosts.