Robert Rorabeck Poems

In webs of disregard
She paints me the color blue:
You should see me.
I don’t even belong this way,
...

You don’t dance
Or read to me anymore;
And I am all grown up,
While upstairs there is a distant female
...

Have you discovered me out somewhere
In the middle of America?
Without song, but not having far to go.
Soon I might learn to sing of fireworks, and dream of
...

Wonderfully alone, without any sort of father,
And just looking at the trees, their slender throats
Basking under the hidden lights- They go up and
Up well trimmed, patient in their dances before
...

I sit beside this uncouth firelight;
It is not warm-
It is a fried chicken charade,
So I strum my legs; it is the best I
...

Pale though well-delineated fish
Drink to new hombres.
They don’t leap but mull the shoals:
Its easy in this weather.
...

My aunts have scars and
So do I, so,
I am going to buy a house-
Not the one I wanted,
...

These windows out to seas are no good-
They have fogged up,
Or turned away:
Nobody says I am beautiful anymore;
...

I’ve wanted to sacrifice for you,
Let fingers see-saw across your neck
Where the tiny silver cross in dangling,
A curse for vampires,
...

The memory of your auburn body,
Even though known but casually,
In the passing of those bleached halls,
Will forever be my only muse:
...