Profile Of A Fatherless Kite Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Abandoned halls still live in echoing footsteps,
Like the ones the little ghosts keep
Tapping around my skull:
I try to drown them out with alcohol,
And her eyes- The persimmons we stole
From the overgrown jungle-
Then we’d ride our bikes past the movie theatre,
And the music hall,
To see the fans and the debutants disembarking
From their daydreams-
We saw them all, and counted their locks of
Nimble hair;
But not a single one saw us, my friend,
Not a single one cared:
Now, down by the lake where the frogs are
Making love and spilling tadpoles into the greenie slow;
We press our brakes for a second,
And listen to the machines growl, as they
Start up and begin their roll: Soon they will be taking
Down the sides of the old buildings, the blinded study halls:
For a second, our spokes are glistening in the sun,
As the school busses parade by like rolling cages,
The screaming yellows of youthful vertigo;
Then we disembark like this again- You to your
Wife and child, me to my nothing at all-
The time is spent, the day is done,
The clouds are building atolls above our skulls,
And yet those distant legs still go echoing familiarly,
Like a storm of mice up and
Down my crumbled hall....