Wishes Upon Her Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Up in the candles into which she has been
Busy praying and weeping
For any boy- as the customers come in according
To custom,
As airplanes fly in the air- and it doesn’t hurt
Me anymore, how she has bothered me-
As she has started first to cry,
And then to wean herself from an easy pain,
To kiss the fists of pugilists-
And she is breathing the brown air, and she is
Panting or cursing just as busily as
Any rattlesnake- so come the dusk, in the farmer’s
Yards she is purring- like a hot jewel she is
Cooling- and I stare at her in my fashion across
The canal, forgetting anyway home as I think up
Wishes upon her.