In Their Conquered Countries Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I’ll go back home to the love joys
In the sessions of hypnotism in their kindergartens,
Breathing like goldfish in paper bags
With their hands on the handlebars of plastic bicycles
From paper chests;
And this is a lesson learned before memories can form:
This is the rain calling up the long-fibrillose tails of
Worms
Through the roots of a tree of death, through its long
Spanish roads like veins of precious stones
Slithering past the groves and along the ancient fortifications
Of the Romans who used to look down at the unquieting
Sea as they stole and made love to all those girls
In their conquered countries.