The Soundproof Bones Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Building your house inside the soundproof bones
As it rained—
And the housewives awakened all at once
From their social unconsciousness:
Little girls they might have been,
As elusive as teal and ruby dragonflies in their front
Yards—spinning their bodiless cadavers
Amidst the lots of cypress, where the
Echinopsis bloomed in nude bouquets,
Thrusting the nuptials of their phalluses towards
Every airplane that passed them by—
And prostitutes falling in love in the park amidst
The graffiti and tampons of
Truants so wonderfully scarred and beautiful—
Trying to imagine their own reflections
Cast away just as they were
Into the cerulean abyss of sky where airplanes
Came like mirages swooping low
And trying to make that dying jungle fall in love
With a vanishing make-believe.