While She Is Crying Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I watch the alley cats’ ablations
Next to the fire hydrant-
Not knowing what it is, except that it is peaceful-
And for Christmas they will eat
Discarded turkey and
Swordfish-
And in their dreams, great cicadas as tall as
Red woods,
And stewardesses as grand as giants to love them,
And let them indoors
To give them unending saucers of strawberry milk
And sing songs to them that they
Can understand beneath the greater and lesser
Heavens
And her planets who come as gallantly as gallants,
Singing her songs and
Slaying her witches- and ringing about her
In unending lessons of servitude and
Virtue- but she will love them less than the alley cats:
And she will let them go,
While she will keep them- and they will bestow upon
Her luck and virtue,
And keep her bed so warm even through the nights
While she is crying.