Presents Of Sacrifice Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I christen my ship by the cheapest species
Of rum- In a basement sea I float around and
Moan like a pitiful cat: Oh, what will
Forever come of me- Bleeding out in this
Bed they switched while I was in Saint Louis-
The bed I had my last legal intercourse in
A decade ago; after that its just been
Working girls:
Naiads of the sea, dryads of trees and snow.
When I look into your eyes, you do not hear.
My inconsideration has no tongue,
Just my busy fingerprints smudging the boot heals
Of a mongrel soul. When I spend my days alone,
When I drive for an hour to the movies that are my
Lesser spectacle, I think of you arriving, lactating in a shaft of
Sunlight, locks of your hair curling like spry weeds
Around the meadow lake where keeps a hidden sword;
There you are forever making love far bigger than life:
I close my eyes through the entire show, seeing your
Fashions better in by that imposed darkness;
And once while drinking from glacier tears in the highest
Basins of your state, it was like kissing your bathtub
Where you’d become inextricably lost,
And there was no excuse for me; but looking down
Those steep and beautiful tragedies,
The ever vermilion slopes, I could almost see you there
Dancing for tourists who could only appreciate you as
Much as they could Disney World;
But I knew that was where you belonged, somehow making
Something otherwise a commercial charade
Sincerely beautiful; and I wept in a sun shower which
Happened all the way down, dampening your shoulder blades
Like softly speckled doves, knowing that even though
I had failed, you would live on in an undeniable daydream
Never affecting my name, kissing the foreheads of a chorus of
Children who sang your name, garlanding you like a
Christmas tree expecting the presents of sacrifice you will
Never think give.