Put Your Lips On My Words Poem by Robert Rorabeck

First whispers in the morning meaning nothing,
Give no candle flame warmth, unless they are of your
Lips,
Just so these words crawl meaningless through the
Bleached white pages of the llano unless they are
Softened by your careful eyes, read
Thoughtfully by your lips,
And my body is a derelict oil rig, a sturgeon without his
Gilly mate, a train car providing little shade in the
Sandbone desert, unless coupled with your body,
Kissed and whispered upon by your lips,
Spoke through and discovered upon by your eyes-
Just as a sunny house is faded into a walking crypt,
A jail cell, an empty tent- without your presence,
The faucets of incubation, your legs drape the bed and
Give it purpose and decoration,
The couch becomes a playground with you on it, the backyard
A green space seeming infinite- If your lips shouldn’t whisper
Across my words, feel them there like a saucy kiss,
Every syllable should wilt and mold, become the droopy soil
And dimmed husk of a rooty skeleton hampered in the wind,
Should your eyes not
Find my page, and track your lips across it with the honest hunger
Of foraging egrets, then nothing I have said is real,
But the hopes of a little boy trying to fly in his bedroom,
But there is still a chance should your lips come across me now,
And feel my words brush them like a teasing feather duster,
Then you should know that they are bona fide and blooming, like
The only flower of a species, and your lips their light and food:
Come feed them then, and they will sing for you the way flowers
Do silently in the germinating wind, and believe them here, for that was their
Purpose: to be read by you and put down like seeds in your mind,
Asking for body and mind, little children plumed in their rooms,
Faucets, sinks, cabinets, brooms, refrigerators, gas powered generators,
And all of the rest of the things that go along with it,
And all the rest of your time, for your lips to crawl up to mine,
And find there what I wish to say to you.