Underneath The Angel-Like Airplanes Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I cant tell time by the candles who are
Burning for the Virgin of Guadalupe: I still have termites
In my house and no family,
But Alma looked good in the out fit I bought her at the
Flea Market abajo I-95:
And she served me a dish of pazoli, and I ate it while her
Children swung wishfully at a piñata, like a mache gondola
On a clothing line:
Then it rained and yesterday Alma had a white eyelash as
White as the sun on her forehead;
It seemed so white that my mother must have been the owner,
And these houses I live in are so old that they have
Forgotten all about the Christmas trees who once lived in
Them,
And the soft footsteps over their octogenarian woods-
And the racing horses that my father has been so abashedly pedaling:
The cars only come once in a while: they barely disturb
The neighborhoods of ghosts who live here while the school yards
Of hungry children pass right through their otherworldly filaments
Eager to be back into their cartoon mausoleums,
Where their even young mothers bless them like virgins in kitchen-like
Grottos underneath the angel-like airplanes.