Theatres Of My Childhood Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Pillow books of my lonely metamorphosis, or
The way I remembered her in her
Barrettes bought in the afterwards of the thrift stores-
And airplanes flying in the sky
As if torches of the messenger gods- in that
Perfect beautiful a long ways off
But in the mirages of our circumference,
The same way the foxes believe,
Or the migrant workers- to touch the vineyards of
The middle class- to touch the stewardesses
Floating there in a mirage of sisterhood:
But I ask myself, won’t they ever go their own way:
Won’t they ever find someone else to love
Underneath the drive-ins of the heavens,
Even after my mother has gone, like the very virgin
Disappeared from the grottos and movies theatres
Of my childhood,
Until all of my loneliness fills up the drainage beside
The highway, like a nest full of abandoned baseball cards,
Or the ghosts already matriculating into the classes I will have
To teach tomorrow.