Valkyries On Neptune, Little Girls In France Poem by Robert Rorabeck

You beckon me in through the seems of
Stolen valleys, where you no longer live,
Where the sky is a ribbon dangled high above
And breathtaking. I do not know
The names of the flowers which grow here
In nocturnal clumps of dark industry,
But I give them your name when you are
Too far away to hear, and there isn’t a lick
Of water, and even the night is sweating and
The echoes sojourn with me,

Back at home, I have thoughtlessly left
A living doll with your name and inclinations,
The vulpine fevers of her lips left to kiss
Each wall, and I think I have done a better job
Than you in defining the shapes and humors
Of your shadow, and she is so young and
Yet taken by one of your gentlemen;
I should say she is mine, but so, she is just
As much yours, a daughter,

I suppose that this will end with you once it
All opens, and thus the sky will spread as a doorway
And there will be kings and ships,
And valkyries in their polished kits and garb,
And yet so far away isolated on the tundra
Of Neptune, as if a star, that they will sit the
Game out; but I will not need them, if you
Stop running, for devilish exertions can only
Get you so far without a modern automobile:

I should come for you just the same,
Stepping over the wilderness you grew until
Bastioned in a gregarious society so much like a harem;
I will take your hand, weaponless and without a clue,
And lead you back to the fairground of my lips,
The red canisters the skipping boys have painted,
And drape you like a wedding gown over
The piston of an arm,
While our daughter laughs,
If only because that is the only thing she knows how.