Poem Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Turtledoves who lie dead and celibate
Sniffed at by the curious rabbit as if they might be
Sweet tufts of asparagus;
And this is where the wind breaks, gets distraught
And disasters,
Making an effluvial mess all over the place,
Like little girls whose hearts squirt candy-apple
Oils,
After they have turned out the loser in the race
Of adolescent romance;
And I have the evidence all over my face;
And the moon is no good for hiding things in a hangover:
The bicycles seem to float under the moon,
Disturbing the crab grasses so very little,
Never leaving marks again to follow the way that
They had come home-
And this is not a sad story; this is not even a poem,
But you are out there in the park somehow, and you
Are not coming home;
It is as if you’d never been, somehow,
As this had never been your poem.