Sure To Die Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I never look you in the eye-
And what if that is the cause of the only loneliness
That I know:
That I can’t be in charge of your tawny body,
Your winsome soul-
Places over the dilapidated fields that hold your
Breath and take your weedy yield-
Why I didn’t mow them for you,
Because I as afraid of sharks, and really afraid of lightning:
And my bad habits;
And not a single girl raises her head out of her walleyed
Holes, to
Sniff the breeze of these words I sow;
But that is not what I am afraid of- I am afraid that I
Must be going soon:
Suicide by cop or coon:
I loved you on the backside of the roller coaster,
On the dark side of the moon,
But the strange traffic just kept pausing to stare at my
Strangely unsatisfied murder;
But that is not what I am afraid of- that these happenstances
Have been my folly,
That I should have been aroused, have been more jolly,
But I just kept shooting for you in the dark,
Censering my swing sets, flatulating reveille in the airplaned
Twilight:
That fact is, Erin, you have a great set of eyes, and didn’t
I mention those tits,
But your amber milk breastfeeds so many nitwits:
I know you said you read most all of this,
But I think you lie-
You just want another pool boy to feed you amber grapes
Before you die,
And you thought it might sad when it seemed that I might
Crawl away to Colorado under another’s flooded
Though just as insouciant banner- blue eyed;
But now you see where I lay, gut shot on the clay-
And either way, like my great great grandfather of civil war
History,
I hold my guts in moaning like toy soldiers
In plastic pails:
Either way- rich and swell,
For this or for the other,
I am sure to die.