The Way I Shall Forever Be Known For Loving You Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Okay,
Now I am so beautiful, I can’t
Even see straight, and I shouldn’t be
Writing anymore for tonight,
And yet I wonder if my muse is reading me:
If she knows what’s good for her, she is,
She is, and its as beautiful as traveling airplanes
To think that she might me, that she is:
Mi Amour; I have a broken jaw
When I was four, and my father put me atop
Of Styrofoam on I-95 in South Florida,
And my mother drove me at 45 mph,
Or so she says: and this is utterly personal
Now, and my body is so numb from cheap rum,
That I recall perfectly the highways of my scars:
Erin, and it is quite perfect, listening to this
Other continent: Can’t you see me across
The scars I give to you, utterly, Erin:
I love you, and yet I am whole, even as you go
Down on him in so many ways, after so many years
I left you, and my epitaph is that I love you,
And I’ve been to Spain and chased the guitar;
And I suppose you’ve told him,
And I hate you, but I was so valiant as to become
The avenue by which my sister Rachelle
Got married without the mention of Christ:
And now she works for a man who sells the used
Cars of her rosy heritage: I used to come over to her house
With the singular cypress, as if it was a privilege to have
A cypress in her front-yard:
But, as I began, so I must conclude:
The glass of rum has surely done me in, and I
Really shouldn’t be attempting poetry, because mine
Is full of flaws, buried around the riches surrounding my
Youth: I don’t know Yiddish:
Ha! Ha! I have all my teeth still, and I love you,
Erin! And f-you, too, because I am coming to my end,
Certainly, because of you- I can hardly see straight:
I have a great uncle who is a retired state judge in
Oregon, but he doesn’t even deserve my
Prose, Erin, and now I am coming to my inevitably
Sad conclusion: I have enough money to buy a house
With a chimney and a beautifully sad garden,
And even without you, my dogs will know my smells,
And remember me that way, even as they die,
And the world comes to war:
And thus I love you, while I fear you haven’t
Love anyone at all, the way I shall forever be known
For loving you.