Plathe Isn'T Free Anymore Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Neon stars are open in the sky,
Advertising for aces and high flyers
While I lick my finger
And try to psych myself up for another poem:
I haven’t been able to look at myself outside
Anymore;
It has been so long since I’ve tasted a woman’s
Lips who didn’t appear invisible
Swinging from the boughs of the orange tree
In my backyard-
The alligators slip in,
Passengers sleep just under the surface of
The canal,
And the girl I don’t know anymore goes along
Her way- She watches the men proceed,
But I don’t want to live here anymore,
Because they say that poets are unattractive,
And look at me,
And the words they form, misappropriated glass
Returned to the kiln’s glowing womb,
Birds shot from the sky and stuttering in the
Grass, waiting for the mastiff’s jaws
As the cars drive by such busy aphorisms of another
Keen season,
And I write to them like dressing up for a celebration
And the clouds move in and stomp their feet to
Get off the weather,
And the swing sets creak like old silver over my shoulder,
The dullness of linear professors
Floats over the lake, while the ghosts of little children
Snag their trousers on the little white cenotaph;
It is cold out here,
But through the window I can see her voluptuous tulips
Blowing up balloons,
Laughing, slapping her knee and taking a moment
To bend down to kiss him,
Watching cartoons.