Robert Rorabeck Poems

She forgets.
Her eyes fade off of him
Return to the busy madness
She drives away in—
...

I heard death for the first time
In a human voice when I was very young
And my blonde aunt argued with her husband
On the other side of the screen door,
...

Though the whole night screams,
I can only whisper silently with my brown eyes
Who have to do their job across country—
Where they look up at constellations, maps
...

100 caskets of blue
Blooming planets
Beneath her tired eyes,
...

I don’t know how to
Hold back.
As soon as I wake up
I use up all my batteries.
...

I am Godlike in infamy.
Jesus Christ came down
Dressed in a man-sized
Planet and crushed me,
...

Where you are
The space between me and you
The platterless green table
Devoid of edges and silver wear
...

Now is not the time for us
To remain motionless
In our beds so far away—
Let the spider bite your
...

If you come running back to me now,
Like a tamed deer back from its ventures in the woods,
I will love you just as I ever did.
See me put down my rifle and lay out my palm
...

I try to line up words for you
Glass bottles filling with sunlight
On the fence, rows of speckled birds
Who I have taught to sing your name,
...