The World You Thought You Had Made Poem by Robert Rorabeck

They say you are beautifully written,
But they don’t come home: They leave you with
A beautiful daughter
And cartoons;
And the kitchens are all stacked and the pool
Is rippling like the fortified spirits
Of a present that is still alive;
And if you go out to the backyard and sit down
In the mowed stuff,
And really feel around, the conquistadors might
Be conjured up for you underneath the poisonously
Gibbous honeymoons of those
Reckless airplanes- the alligators might even
Line up for you, and shed one great unifying tear-
I don’t know where you wife is,
But the pearl of her is in your daughter,
And she is asleep on the couch, in the alabaster shell
Of the world you thought you had made.