Underneath A Christmas Tree Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Their zoo is your dry crypt
And we go here to touch ourselves:
Newlyweds in another world as the sun shines
And the tourists go home, embalmed with wet
Pants:
I can say that you never saw me underneath a Christmas
Tree—
Even though the airplanes were scuttled
And made to retreat until we no longer believed ourselves
Beautiful;
But it wasn’t out country that lost anyways—
And our lips were like seashells resting up seashells that
Were left unburied
Across the chest of a labyrinth that basked repeatedly into
The caressing shadows—
Until there were children around us and soft words—
And we both swore that we would last long enough to
See them grow up
And ride bicycles propped up by the moonlight like
Motels—where my parents made love
And at least a half of us—so we arose our eyes to
Where the sun beckoned—
And so showed us all of that beauty that could
Never be properly named.