Christmas On Jupiter Poem by Robert Rorabeck

A gorgeous bowl of teak,
But I don’t understand- There isn’t
Any trees,
But a grove of cairns some devil’s
Field, all the skree is broken pottery:
The junkyard Indians are out right now,
The gentlemen are lighting their cigars,
But I am on the wrong mountain.
I am on Jupiter,
And all I have is cheese and crackers.
When contemporary daylight falls,
She will be alone with him; he’ll have
Brought over his videogames,
And she will have cleaned off any traces of
Our domesticity;
She’ll have renamed the cats,
And sent the mercenary lightning storms calling after
All my scars: And all I wanted was to
Be beautiful, to junk up the breathless sky with
My name;
But this range is apathetic,
My tent is blue and torn, and all the stones
Are gossiping,
And I have gone down the drainage of the wrong
Basin,
All the wildflowers are evil,
And they will be making love in our bed,
And by the time I’ve found the narrow gauge
Railroad and refilled the canteen by its creek,
She’ll have boxed up my Christmas Presents,
And hung a crown of her new name;
And the foreign exchange student working the service
Car will look at me appraisingly, but
Have a change of heart, and by that she will put
A new lock on her bicycle,
And I shall disappear amongst all these tourists
Before we should make it back to Durango.