The Sea A Mightier Retinue Poem by Robert Rorabeck

By body enfolded the same old
Art: of plagiarism, of rattlesnakes:
The tourists move as curiously as snails before housecats:
Packing their luggage on their winabagos
And setting off like fat bellied conquistadors;
And this a whole yard and not so far away,
The little spots where I sat and rusted in
A forgotten yesterday:
And the grooms, and the brides, seesawing underneath the
Airplanes- and all of it moving its luggage towards dusk,
Bandylegged- like old men who once were curious
And followed the preening girls homewards at least
Half ways,
But were too curious- and got distracted by the wolf and the fox
Burying the wooden boy’s gold in a seaside and shallow
Grave, and saying to him,
And promising to him- that this is how it would come to us,
Overflowing spilling over,
Tempting him as religious as bees mothering their honey:
The sea a metaphor of flame tipped birthday candles,
And the preacher standing over our mistakes- our rattlesnake
Bites, our dead dogs and stolen baseballs:
Promising us the truth, as the witches rustled with the crows,
All eager for the storm: ashes to ashes, dust to dust:
Wooden boys who awaken daydream of what they might have had;
Their pockets empty, their saddlebags empty:
The sea a mightier retinue of cats and foxes
Blowing their wishes away.