The Inoffensive Night Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Alma: I flood, I spill, and I lavish:
I look like a reindeer’s tongue being spread out in a bank
In some greatly snow banked town in the delusions
Of Arizona:
And in this way I resound; or I reverberate for you, like
Some greatly strung instrument
While my own parents are stringing tents for
New Years fireworks and none of
Them: not even my sister can believe that you truly love me:
But you truly love me:
Do you, Alma,
While the planes come in, fluctuating and making the sounds
Of a grand commotion:
And then once the holiday is over wont you go back to
Work with my cousin,
While the very same old sun floats over the very banks of
Everything and makes a mess of
Itself;
And your children steam on along- doing so fine out of your lions,
While the lions prefer to panhandle,
While there are deep clefts left into the earth, and the salmon die
Higher up, but every year returning through the pitchforks,
And the hot air balloons of all of the any old tourists
Get lost until they hit the power lines
And then fell like money pits into their super zealous wishing wells-
Attributing to no one; answering to themselves,
And licking their wounds just where they happened to fall-
Across the dirty carpets, down from the snowcapped banks of Telluride;
As you kiss your wounds, and meander through your silver
Ways to midnight and back again to West Palm Beach where
You don’t have to tell anyone, but curl into yourself
For the night- like a grail that glows with the big mouths of pearls,
Luminescent and basking in the shallow
And lonely bedrooms that are fondled through the inoffensive night.