Three children prompting death- skipped school <br />Together to look into your eyes, <br />And you just smiled as if you didn’t believe in death, <br />And the ice-cream man didn’t come- <br />The air-plants didn’t bloom- The liquor was watered <br />Down, <br />And the swing-set didn’t arc high enough for any <br />Of the children to tickle papa’s feet: <br />And I laid out somewhere at the bottom of Michigan <br />Listening to my great-uncle water-ski, <br />His powerboat making the noise I would like you to <br />Make if I could pull your motor, <br />Put my tongue to your pistil and steal what is necessary <br />For a florist shop to survive; <br />But I still have both of my legs, and even scarred the pain <br />Is not great enough to start a fire from fiddling sticks: <br />Yes, the star falls, the planes die, <br />The UFOs pick up strange hitchhikers, but it is yet not <br />Enough to realize the bloom of the cactus flower, <br />The strange ornithologies my father whispered last in my <br />Ear as he took up his walking stick and struck out on <br />Your trail, hoping to prove the sweet adulteries which <br />Were never for sale in any store in his neighborhood; <br />And even then your eyes turned away, <br />Gesticulating long-lashed upon other men who sat like kings <br />In other hemispheres even as they too turned away.<br /><br />Robert Rorabeck<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/three-children-prompting-death/
