Birds Who Will Never Fly Again Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Out front in the houses of hibiscus,
The rain engorges like chariots; and I touch myself,
And I bleed- I want some of it to be beautiful;
And I want it to be published,
But this is just how the nights proceed like careless enterprises
Way up in the space of what they proceed;
And the traffic doesn’t care where it is not going,
Back and forth like a beautiful gown;
Can’t it even see that it is dying, that its words and paint
Jobs are ugly;
And how does he fill filibuster your mouth,
And why don’t you have children yet if you are so beautiful,
While I buy pornography to fulfill myself;
And I wonder yet how you were wounded, after you lost
Your virginity to guitar playing spikenard;
I wonder yet how you have become who you are,
And yet you are weeping deep, deep in the crepuscule of those
Yards who aren’t even yet who you are,
Wounded like birds who will never fly again….