Whatever It Was Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Indebted to whatever hemispheres there were;
I was not a wise man, but I came baring gifts, and stealing
Bicycles;
One ear pressed to the waves, a lucky rabbit slowly murdered
In the grass underneath the hoof prints of terrapin who
Didn’t belong there anyways,
Like busses who took a round about underneath the burning
Sugar cane,
Who only carried in their custard tresses the pantomiming
Pharoses of pubescent
Truancy;
And the color of my soul was green: Alma, it was my favorite
Thing while it was waking up;
And by tomorrow I will know if you do not love me,
While the boomslangs sizzle above the trapeze of teepees:
They say all of the awful things:
That you will never make it to water, that your dog will know the
Luck of the gods before
You come to your senses; and that the Hibernian woods will have
Decorated all of their Christmases even before you get out of
The yawning of your trailer park,
While your dumb wife is sunbathing topless beside the communal
Pool,
Or estuary; and there are always still fireworks to sell across
The seven seas who penumbra the desert like the evaporates of
Metamorphosis,
As the kings crown in chrysalis, their youngish boys jouncing
Across the earth,
Shooting their bows into the heart of harts, biting their lips and wet-
Dreaming of whatever it is that they will become.