The Gravestones Which Say Their Names Poem by Robert Rorabeck

The prom queens are in disguise,
Brushing in their raiment, slipping like anorexic
Manatees into the green goodbye,
And the world is overheating, panting like a tortoise
Who has eaten too much of the deep orchid,
And is feeling nauseous watching the tourists go by,
Growing around the beautiful mermaid slapping with
The coy otters who can’t think but smile,
And soon we will be selling fireworks, and I will be
Getting paid; Even sooner still, someone will slip away,
Forgetfully and finally, the persistent conclusions of
Gravity, but grandmother finally has a headstone,
And I am writing another poem trying to tattoo my
Skeleton onto this page: Wishful thinking, like trying
To mix cake in a recipe of scars and tears,
And everything else the little girls don’t know to say
For so many years, as the buses draw up in evening,
And in morning, as mosquitoes steal insignificant amounts
Of blood, and the children in their seats fight and squeal,
And one or to yet afraid hide their faces in books and
Worlds that dream for them- Led by the hands of the state,
The will grow up eighteen years knowing the system,
And the attritions will leave them smoking on the other side
Of the canal, or farting on sun torched rooftops, and the
Successes will buy them homes, and insure them in fine automobiles,
But finally they will graduate in rented gowns, a zoetrope
Of accolades and smiling families, and then separate like
Tributaries into the flowing institutions of their merit, and most
Likely will never see each other again, except that they will all
Rest like so much sleep under the fixed gravity and the
Gravestones which say their names.