To Cry Indoors Poem by Robert Rorabeck

In another joyless aspersion,
The skeletons dance with the tortoises—
Jeweled in the pirouettes of
Death,
Something like the sparkling narcoleptic
Dance of
Europa or Ganymede around
Jupiter,
As my next housewife lies on the other side
Of the world,
Where her airplanes and helicopters
Fly and hover unseen—
And the birds and the hummingbirds drink
From her fountains:
She weighs less than a hundred pounds,
Less than a half of me—
And I finger paint through her,
As she lies sweating in still life's of cut up
Pineapple and mango
Sprinkled with the ghosts on the asphalt
Outside of another high school—
As I pretend to be amused another time by
Her gifts—
But my strings are cut, and I am just waiting
For my tomorrow—
Fairytale all my own with her in the burned
Out center of my heart—
Another amusement park that has altogether
Skipped town,
Until the papier-mâché imps are once again
Dancing on my shoulders—
And we take our own busses through the cul-de-sacs,
Until the sunlight burns through the paper—
And the rainstorms have the unforgiving patients
Until we arrive home and cry indoors.