Because The Angels Were Lost Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Billygoats in the maelstroms of their youths
Think about crossing bridges:
They don’t think about baseball games or
Football games,
Or any kind of sort of that kind:
The tadpoles are beauty marks beneath their
Cloven hooves,
And when they get to the middle of the bridge
While the alligators have been taking their
Time thinking about laughing at them,
The old troll gets out of her slumber
And jumps like a purple soar to
The middle of that arc
And demands a toll- and demands a tax,
While the truants and the children of those
Truants play in the shallows with the marbles
And the jaxs-
And the sorry old boys are lost out into the world,
Thumbing for rides, or panhandling on the
Islands amidst the sea of cars-
And if you were me, or I were you, it might
Be alright to rest for awhile and to take a trip
Indoors-
Because the angels were lost across the canal,
And now their wings were wetted, and their slips
Slipped:
Unfortunately, I think they must remain there
Forever, underneath the holy and the airplanes,
Kissing the riverbank like burned fireworks,
Because their beds had burned,
And their ships had shipped