Marvelous Ruin Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Flowers pattering in the
Melting snow-
Short obituaries drift like wood
In sugar palm cities. Everything
Is sweltering- Remote control boats
Drip and sweat.
Paper candy rots.
Black men and white men are indistinguishable.
I want to be with you,
But I wear the mask of a beat up
Thief-
Who was caught in the rose garden
Again.
Everything is indifferent- my uncle is
Whistling from the canal
Where the living are no longer swapping seats;
I think I’ll play this music on your birthday-
If you saw me, I think you’d run away;
And the clouds are stampeding in
An obnoxious torpid haze-
The sun doesn’t know where he is
Across this fat peninsula-
Some parking lots are more crowded
Than others-
I am utterly alone- my boyhood has
Slipped away-
Even I don’t know what I am anymore,
But it is such
Marvelous ruin.