The Useless Aphorisms Of Scars And Seashells Poem by Robert Rorabeck

This is what I want you to do for me,
In the land of the blue cabinets where the
Egrets are nesting,
Combing her hair along her bare shoulders
Far down in the syrupy shadows from where
The cars are driving, humming in families,
seeming to leap for miles
Where the sun is shining.
I want you to lock the door, and make sure
To scatter my ashes across the back of the
Mountain, should I not be home anymore,
Should I fall asleep and not remember how her
Eyes skated the trim of nimbus
Reflecting her semiprecious dreams,
Like daylight on goldfish or serpent’s scales
Or loose change in wishing wells;
Or how the young bicycles turned to and from classes
And jingled down hanging lanes of unmolested tobacco,
How her flesh displayed for happy surgeons
As she served them at the café;
Should I not come home anymore, and if the
Dogs get too hungry, if it doesn’t rain for an
Uncertain number of days. Don’t cry over the words
I have spilled,
The useless aphorisms of scars and seashells,
but get sick on cheap liquor and
Watch the daytime operas, the little clefts turn red
Or golden, the clean gifts on shelves
For little children where the wilderness comes through between
The commercials,
Where the trees are spangled. I don’t want for you to weep,
Or even to remember who I was,
But to lock the door and turn away, clutching her hands
Together, wondering what there is to eat,
While the innocent bicycles hustle through the tinseling mangroves,
And scatter my ashes upon the shoulder blades
Of that mountain, the woman who loved more,
Or just go to sleep.