Catharsis Of Filth Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Catharsis of filth
Woebegone in the mountains—
The cars drive by the closed
Burger joints
As the mountain lion
Eats a blue bird for supper:
As a little boy,
I don’t look up—
I don’t want to look out of my window
To see these things making love
In a movie theatre
Beneath the pines—
I don’t want to send out flowers to the
Open winds,
But if I know I open my eyes
I will have to—
So I live right here,
Truant slipped classically out of
High school
With the cadavers of alligators
Before graduation—
And I write you another line
Just before the dead end of narcolepsy—
Necrophilia
Is your name,
Muse whom I exhume
Like a puppet
From the roadside—
I don’t want to touch you but for
These words—
They fall upon your stamens like
Hummingbirds and bumble bees,
As like wise upon your
Cadavers as red ants and
The larvae of inch worms—
Each one the same diameter
Of each of these petty chimes—
They sing out for you,
Your soul an infinity in
The convalescence of your marriage—
Even after nothing is left of you
To survive.