I Know I Am Not Pablo Poem by Robert Rorabeck

She wakes up in Colorado
Some mornings; the aspens are taking off
Their blushing clothes; they don’t stop
When she yawns, they get done and naked.
In opal crooks where birds no longer sing,
And mountains dawn powder white caps,
Winter’s hoary pollens,
As tourists bring their skis into their downy basins,
And her mother sells them used books
About Hemmingway and far away,
Matadors in red deserts of spikenard,
Lorca breathless under his olive tree;
I should not stop in front of her storefront on my
Way to the graveyard,
I should not write out another poem in childish
Fingerprints upon the windowpane;
But the pain is this far tattooed into the walking cadaver;
These noiseless sounds from the industrious fingers....
What then? Another poem before midnight,
And the abatement of Tesla’s inventions down the
Ghostly main street. How so will she find me in
A fur coat. She is not even six feet tall, but would balance
Me well enough on the see-saw if we leaned over and
Laughed the way children do before they tire and
Fall asleep; but when I read my own words by the
Illusion of fire, I know I am not Pablo. Untalentedly
Scarred, how should she love me then when she already
Has the ring on her finger; this is no longer kindergarten,
and what should I make of
Her but a nature allegory, a dryad kneeling into a
Glacial tear. I could do it just as easily for the girl who
Serves me from the fast-food window,
Before I drive away and start a greasy séance, and I would
Be faithless to her, for the talent that I lack is the knowledge
She would give, her body draped like an answer, a
Blanket of warm fidelity, so much warmer than what
Has become, that I should lapse into amnesia, forgetting
Where I live.