The Roads That Would Not Turn Around Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Remember the roads that would not turn around,
The rainy cul-de-sacs and all of their pornographies—
Remember how you just got lost as
A little boy
And to solve all of the problems for
Yourself,
Your seven fingers so sticky from the candy?
And when you were a child
And the littlest yard on Haverhill
They have now paved in with a two lane road—
And across the caved in street all
Of the broken down chassis so chock full of
All of that pornography—
So the public school system won’t let you teach
In the classroom anymore—
And the job you used to have,
But now you can just go home and get drunk
And dream of candy—
The sea horses and the manatees—
The baseball games underneath of the wayward
Palm trees—
The bases crowded with the boys with the scabby
Knees
And the patrol cars that never have to check
Up—because they are all going for home base,
Their lights blazing—
Open throated inside of the song of the little
House—
The songbirds inside a seashell of rainstorms—
And all of the emptied houses ending up
Down near the canals that gave themselves
Over to the roses of virgins throwing themselves
Upon the hard-shelled roads of anyways.