The Sunlight In Its Afternoons Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Wizards of one or two beers
Making eyes with the dog—all alone at the
Edge of some quinceanera—
What makeshift business they make for themselves
Underneath of the clouds,
A little hall-less home
Diademed by Christmas lights and
The fairy-tales of their high school—
Places of lost business
And the pornographies of housewives
Pleasuring themselves against the patinas
Of the copper canals—
With the ancient tortoises wishing for mermaids,
And the cul-de-sacs briefly cenotaphs
For the virulent failures of the sunlight in its
Afternoons.