The Horrid Mountain Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Poem of empty ballrooms- this is your star
Made for witches tearing- it is their airy folklore
That makes the dew, that puts the rabbits
To sleep while the girls are unremarkable until
They are diminishing- and then they are
Put into zoos, or sold at flea markets: they are made
To stand very still and given porcelain babies
Beneath them- and then they are the virgins,
Or weeping in pieta in a doll house’s carport or
At some hotel- and the lions are their dolls
That the tourists enjoy driving around, like Indians
And their teepees, and their fires made out of
Orange aluminums-
And I pick them up like some god awful monster
Made from the sea, and I hold them to my breast
And tell them I love them, as they bend like
Wildflowers taken too far up the horrid mountain.