Infinite Grave Poem by Robert Rorabeck

There are enough people who know that I am
Dying to not have to care:
I just want my toys too, to run my fingers through your
Motherly hair,
To suckle beside your seventh grader on the porch swing
Of your glades;
As the airplanes circle like wooden boys, wondering
Why they were made:
And you once wanted me outside my house to fall down
Beside you in the paper snow;
But now you don’t know anything but football:
You are the marmalade queen: Your tits are savage and
As fat as cabbage or hibiscus:
You fill the cups, you are a cupbearer, and I wonder if you
Know yet for what hero,
Or if your heros are as yet interchangeable, as are their evils:
I think maybe you are all cartoons drawing your
Colorful guns out in the middle of the trailer parks of these
Hilarious afternoons,
While I have been burned by all the fun lies I have sold or
Stolen;
And all my houses are empty or they haven’t yet awoken;
And you know your name, and your hair flows like
A thin young and auburn cemetery.
Who are you an aunt to, but why have you hurt me so:
I keep crying out my song into the emptiness of this high school
Dance;
And I just wanted to draw you close to me like a piece of broken
High school romance.
Erin- Why can’t you love me, and why do you let me go by you
This way,
Dying like a sad young river like a beautiful Indian princess
Just another conquered tributary accumulating
To your insouciant and outstand brilliance- just another
Avenue stepping out fearfully into the crepuscule of your
Infinite grave.