The Newly Rehearsing Storm Poem by Robert Rorabeck

And then their bodies plant over exhausted
In the brown recesses that
I have too many times felt for myself:
While I drive back and forth today
Before Sparrow Lane and the hollow echoes of what
That means to me:
If it means to me anything:
While we all have been to kindergarten or prison:
While all of our pets will sooner need to know their
Model cemeteries:
While the stewardesses flame like birthday wishes in the skies;
And it all pillages for awhile across the echinopsis of the
Toy jungles into which the magicians rabbits
Are defeated by the pet jaws of our
Daylabouring canines; and the country turns yellow,
Waylaid and all too barren:
And the band starts to play- the scarecrows dance with
The flying monkeys:
As I cross the canal to get to my wife who is haunted
By the house who has warped the floorboards
In its efforts of following her across the streets of
Coquina and into the turquoise dunes of thirsty headdresses
And buried pornographies just to get one glance at her
As she weeps her head down to the luxuries of the water fountain,
Like in the absentee chorus of a hummingbird- her soul-
Her Alma lighter than air as she turns away, heady with the
Recesses of whatever seasons she pretended to exist in;
As once again I cross the street over night just to
Get to her, as the storm clouds fall like defeated forts for tourists;
And the waves are coming in with the adulations of bullrings,
Quiled in their effortless gambits like valentines
Sent away across the sherbet and valentine rugs of
Kindergarten that I still pretend to be kissing just to get to her:
My muse or whoever she was: her faces and breasts changing,
The bouquets of her armpits and graveyards shrugging off my
Efforts;
As I linger in the sidelines of American football, no longer assured
Of her fanfare as her aloe grows and lingers smudging the sides
Of a woebegone household whose wet and seaside paint
Runs all too eagerly at the last sight of the newly rehearsing storm.