The Beating Hearts Of A Living Grave Poem by Robert Rorabeck

The otter comes out and plays around
Her fragile slipper
Lost somewhere on the wet yard nearby
My feet of glass,
As I go out under the resilient canopy and
Take leak.
So high school is over, and I only took
From it so many words
To roam the homeless world with me,
And I didn’t take her when I
Thought that we should be entrained.
Her daughter has a beautiful face now
And his last name,
And the world is getting smaller like an amusement
Ride,
Or like a witch going counterclockwise,
And all the time the buses are returning home with
Their gaggles of bullies and children.
I remember, her skin was as smooth as a birthstone,
As fleeted as a paper airplane,
And now all my art floats like something very small
And fabricated down the neighborhoods
Of Venice,
And everything that has to do with water should
Be a metaphor for her existence:
The way she is going now, where I try to capture her
Like immortality:
Is it that I’d hoped to fill a bed with her,
Or a page,
But they have both escaped above my head,
And the tourists are trying on skis.
Jordan’s sister is finally home, her chest so bee stung,
And soon I’ll be drinking to her
While whatever light the hour can find crenulated the
Pool,
And maybe I’ll be so satisfied, I won’t even have to
Dress up and moan for girls name
Sharon, who never really seem to care if they are home,
Or their flags so conveniently raised from
The beating hearts of a living grave.