Her Twin Sisters On My Page Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I receive a copy of my first book,
And lay back the cover as if I would a woman:
A good treat, five days before Halloween.
Scarred, but who cares, as now I can hold up
My head while walking down the echoing hallways
Of high school.
Who else will follow me, as I write down this
Draft on a paperback copy of Mark Twain’s
Huckleberry Finn:
Now I can settle down to lunch atop a better poet’s
Gravestone, pretend that I understand the multiplicities
Of insects riling over my joints as song birds over
The romance of sea;
Or that I was almost held back for failing to learn
Algebra, or that I have been scolded many times by
Librarians for my tardiness a insouciance,
A favorite word of mine. Now I am a geode displayed for real,
Cracked open at the racetrack by the many hooves of
The leggy runners: and the winners cry, and the loser
Shamble away, but in time their fortunes of poverty
Will see reversals, as I have seen mine; but a little
Thing, these few words of mine, toy soldiers who
Deny the mirrors, but what better foreplay than my book
Laid down on this bed beside me, so will not she come
Like a curious bee to my flowers, to my cage, for
I have done good work for her, so now she should lay
Down beside me, and her twin sisters on my page.