To Adore Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Words- words every night under houses like snails:
Open mouthed for the love nests of birds:
These words
Cut their throats with the paper cuts of words, with the
Spanish conquests of high school
That never seem to heal:
Even as the lonely forts crumble, and the tourists retreat
To their ice creams:
These words stumble underneath the blowing embraces
Of propellers and
Windmills exploring the world, or taunting quixotic nights;
Entire hillsides of caracoles,
Of graffitied desks- while the coffins race underneath
The red mountains of Colorado,
As the choleric brides are unearthed and dribble down
Like the landslides of birthday cakes:
And I watch my muses out on parade, their bodies like
A fire engine greased with marmalade,
While the rivers conceive around them whatever slender
Births they have left-
And the matadors fight their bulls, and the housewives
Their bets:
Until it is time to turn in beside their pools,
While the hobos slip through the canals like rummy conquistadors
Finding their loves escaped from the circus in a tent of
Palmettos fanning up from the easement
In the safely mowed fields in which the housewives can easily
Feel content to adore.