It happens that I am not at home,
And that I am filled without reason for a place that
Will not heal,
While the stewardesses come in talking nonsense,
Fresh from their leaping bivouacs,
But famished from their overpriced breastfeeding
Of their constituency of tourists;
And they lie across the room and wait for the special
Cases of lions,
And the fire drills during homeroom:
And they mouth off to me with their eyes, swimming:
Turquoise and dove-shelled:
Almost salient, and reachable across the dime-store
Canal,
So my breathing becomes busied,
And I am held over, and lightened by their speak-easies,
Hermosas of the airlines,
Or other waxy fairytales, until my parents arrive and
Drive me home to bedtime and to other places
That I awake and praying, like a tortoise who becomes
A lighthouse in his shell.
Robert Rorabeck
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/in-his-shell/
