So Near To Me Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I make wishes I blow atop of esoteric houses,
When I really shouldn’t be here anymore,
Lingering in the sad and particular wounds that my aunt
Never should have read,
Going up the stilled ladders even after all of the firemen
Have come down,
Speculating on the absences of those disasters,
How they spilled out into the world discombobulated,
As if sweetened roe from the backwards wombs of salmon:
Now the teachers in their winsome chariots are congratulating one
Another all across the sky,
And the fireworks are leaping like hopeful foxes nipping at their
Toes:
The world is all well and green with the envious men holding their
Breath under the gas tanks;
But they are all feathered and tanned in their scars, and their
Throats are filled with cheap alcohol, their tongues the matches,
Their eyes a fire that keeps their senses from blindness:
So soon there will come a show so bright that there
Will be no further need to save the sailors from the sea,
And we will both be together to see the end of it,
Your body so far away, but so near to me.