To Another Street Of Coquina Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Cold as the soup kitchens that cannot feel;
Like the cold soup that a hypnotized chicken is cut into
While it rains in my house
And over the everglades, and the bums and hobos and
Their wino cousins take shelter underneath the overpasses:
My mother reads to my past childhood in the glowing
Warmth of a library that has since shut down:
But while she did, her skin and body resonating as perfect
As a virgin in some grotto or some carport:
Why, there she was, blue sheets rippling and kissing lemon
Trees
And underneath the knees, Mexican candies: and she didn’t
Care about all of the cheap stuff I’d stolen from kindergarten,
Or the pornography I knew about across the street in the
Woods:
She showed me tadpoles, and the kidnapped toys who slumbered
In the corrugations of the ditches:
She was like a stewardess taking time off to light off fireworks,
And if I ever saw her cross over the canal to get to another
Street of coquina just as poor as ours was,
Then I am sure that she would be taking me to another world.