The Other Side Of The Canal - Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Children in their lithographs making oblong
Rounds,
Girls young and beautiful and yet stranded like
Upside down terrapin at the racetrack
Far a field where I stop out of the way to buy
My beer-
This night has been weeping a pittance, and I went
And saw a movie alone with all my other
Bachelors;
Then outside in the play of cold opium tresses;
And I want to spill myself into her, all those girls
Whose minds have left their bodies:
Who have spruced up the place and then left like
Fair weather to confront secret affairs:
Gaunt young men who sit behind them in the pews
On Sunday,
Whiling the skies away where airplanes are like
Crucifixes, and visa versa;
And I can see the lizards that no one else can see;
So the day is over, and I am waiting again for my parents
To make love,
As I too begin to dream of girls and little children who
Are not real anymore, but so persistently turn their
Heads to face me from the ice-shaven dunes,
I have no choice but to sing to them
While the alligators await for me on the other side of
The canal, knowing what they do.