My Best Friend Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I swing more than the hour I am with you,
But tonight my lips don’t smell of rum while you
Meet with your husband and a friend in
A bar-
Egrets perch over you, but what are the shapes of
Egrets;
And when can I run away again, softly repeating
The mistakes of your empty branches,
While mother washes her face, and the old dogs
Cry because they have never seen your
Face as I have seen your face, or at least that is
My make-believe for why they should cry
When there is a storm of tinsel and the spit of kissing-
Balls over the Faberge castles, where lawyers are
Kissing their cohorts on senior fieldtrips all spread out
Through the unreal esplanades, the slender walks of
Their professional amusements;
If I should see you there in a chariot of your legs,
I would hold this breath for you, and wait long enough for
The oceans to change places with the clouds,
If to show you that I was not your prince; in fact meaning
More than the stations of the otherwise or any man,
As if this were a game of musical chairs held over from
Kindergarten, and we were the two seated last together,
Like a prince and his queen, or any other meaningless thing,
Except that I would like you to be my best friend.