Saint Augustine Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Getting drunk
And afraid to die
I crawl into a worn-out shoe.
I close my eyes but
Your face superimposes
On the room,
A space for advertisements,
A market of body parts
Living on their own:
Your legs are running around
Like jackrabbits with toes
Painted red,
Good luck charms on chains
For strange, chain-smoking men
Make good pets.
I check to see how much
I have in my pockets: $1.76—
Not enough to buy a piece,
The heart-pounding meat,
The parts of the doll buried by
Blue settlers in the pasture
To keep safe from Indians;
But after high school
They stole you away
And made you speak their
Language. They tied you up
In an industrious forest and
Made you do calisthenics.
Now where you lay down
There is no room for me.
There is not a word for me in your
Head, just things you cannot
Explain auctioning of
More juicy tidbits.
Cowardly in a shoe,
I toast you alone
And to your legs who have stolen
Away and are even now
Surfing over the sleepy bones
Of conquistadors and drowsy Jesuits
In the rich shallow bays
Of Saint Augustine
Where scattered silver lays
Fractured-naked,
Obscured, like valuable pieces
In memory.