Robert Rorabeck Poems

Like puppies who somehow shut up at the sight
Of the next round of glorious sunset coming through
Your window,
Like a glorious tsunami that the clown fish have been
...

I see the weathervanes rippling like old women
Over the top mast of a house I’ve never lived
In,
And it occurs to me my words are flowers I’ve never
...

Landscaped in the caracoles of our homes,
Like benchmarks in whatever kind of weather exists for
The day,
I find it hard to look up as stone, even when the butterfly
...

Back in the echinopsis of cowboys
Alma sticks her tongue out at me at high noon
In a cathedral of carnivals,
Like gum sticks to the roofs of school buses,
...

Pleasant thoughts, like a rainbow on the tit of
An alligator,
As she lays down with him, and tastes the murder of his
Smile,
...

Making love in front of coquina fireplaces sometime
After school,
While all of the debutants were getting ready for
Their decathlon of enviable plays,
...

How mariposas got to Saint Louis
I doubt even they will know: even I flew so swiftly
Away from there,
Forgetting to visit Sara Teasdale’s grave and no longer
...

Her husband’s little boy’s little fingers
Making plastic ships do sarabands on the couches
Underneath the virgin by the doorway
Of their highly mortgaged house,
...

Caladium is a name for a flower with ears
Big enough to fly,
Around the footstalls of houses where the amphibians
Ululate until they are picked off like canaries for
...

Copper thighs gleaned by golden razors as
The stewardesses prepare to fly; or as I road in a car
The other night with a woman who looked
Like a female super hero;
...