Loxahatchee Lassie Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I could be perfect for you still,
After work,
Drinking warm beer folded alongside the
Highway where they are yet holding
Dusty constructions-
The alphabet soup of these roads
Linger with your perfume,
The lascivious orchids which float around
The drainage off the golf course
Where the richer people go to take time off-
Those people who chip and
Shout out scores, whose children have long gone off
To college, to forget who we were,
And to take time doing better things.

I could skip right out of my life and find you,
Swing you up in an old tire the tree holds,
Its mossy crook a castanet for fables
And those sorts of mouthy lies-
We could watch the rusting bellies of
Antique airplanes leaving the earth,
As now all the busy and Hispanic fires to balmy life,
Celebrating and shooting off guns where there
Once was only us in that little day gone school,
Or kissing under the chicken wire ornaments,
New brides decorated with alligator skins,
The stained ceiling fans making do for better
Constellations;

You were beautiful even then,
Mostly then- the teacher’s pet, and that was
The only time my spelling was near perfect,
But it was still all for you,
The wishes in the grass, even the weedy
Crèches suddenly flooded with water moccasins
And their aphrodisiac vision;
But even now I am a bigger boy and lonely
Except for my dogs, trying to do reasonable
Long division, trying to ripple my stones across
The sunken rooms where I have long
Misplaced you,
But if you are there it is only your lascivious
Sister, the Naiad of your Christian name,
Entrenched with deadly songs not bothering
If it is for me or some other sailors,
And I should know better,

Allowing you to carry on down your particular
Life with eyes for the boys and their Budweiser-Chevys,
Knowing what only you could,
Remembering you half-perfectly maybe in fifth
Grade while you sang so blondely in the chorus
And I sat and watch and dribbled like an expectant
Confection in the day gone humidity;
The soft shelled turtles poking extemporaneously,
Retarded interest nearsighted from the corrugated
Drainage, and

I suspected you even then for a wife, but look how
The time has come and flooded us apart,
Taking you quite eagerly to better men with their
Trucks and flags,
And sending me back to the ghettos of some
Midwestern Catholic school,
No longer interested in wresting or Daniel Boone;
Perhaps with the expectations of some kindly sister,
That I should learn my better spellings,
And honor you by such distances,
And the better utilities of my childish art that
Should bring me back around you in so many ways
Too small to notice, or bother you,
Hoping you kick up your heels for another dance,
All locked up and fallen into a husband’s arms.