Robert Rorabeck Poems

If I went down to Mexico, it was to drink
Salt:
And standing up that way from the impossible
Watering hole where the purple
...

She has her family, and I have my rum
And masturbation:
I have the terrible habits and my dog has fleas.
The rabbit in the forest beneath the house
...

Holding out for hours of playgrounds
While the new wives come home
Leaving finger and toe prints across the leaves
In the sunshine-
...

Lost in the bivouacs of a fruit orchard,
Saying goodbye to a make-believe wife while the
Sun showers slick the ladders
And the day laborers come down, tanning repeatedly,
...

White as the echo of a ghost, I lay with Alma:
We do not make love, but we kiss- and it snows in the
Sunshine:
I tell her, her skin is beautiful, and I dream of her
...

If the doors close, will the lips too pull back:
I feel alone even at the delta of her kiss,
And the airplane’s wings are spread and flying in the dead
Of night where the luscious students lay sleeping,
...

When you bathe your daughter in that little room,
And when she sleeps beside you in that littlest of beds:
Then these are just the unread words
Scribble in the lavatories of unclimbable mountains,
...

You don’t have to tell me you read my words,
Alma:
I can tell by the rich auburn of your eyes when you look up and
Stare at me from across the fruiteria:
...

The bus drivers love one another as they deliver
All of the children to their school,
And then they pass away like salmon, like mariposa,
Like birthday cakes in your sweet forests,
...

The bodies are really hear, terrifying through the shadows:
And I am sweating through all of my scars
Laying potbellied on the couch I bought last week at faith farms:
But I have no face other than in you,
...