Before Her Uncountable Lair Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I lick store brand rum from the hair on my
Forearm; it is sickly sweet, but I must do it; and tomorrow
I will look at houses,
And I will think of some sweet thing or another,
Who I will beat my drum so softly for she can never hear,
Especially if she cannot read English;
And I will buy a house to live in alone while I still wait for her,
While she makes love to her more professional men,
Or her train robbers,
Giving her children guns so that they can learn early too,
While her matchbox of a house swings underneath the muddy
Bottoms of bamboo:
And I have written entire Bibles for her; I have resurrected
Strange words to press onto her body, and I have revisited old
Parks and thought of the places now emptied that I would
Have liked to have swung with her;
And I am think of her even now, and destroying my most
Precious materials into pumice, anonymous and
Priceless,
Giving over all of my guts and escargot as if to a litter of hungry
Puppies, calling the unhinged serpents away from their
Hampers and wash basins,
Setting fire to even castles of army ants: all for her,
And sending up signal flares of roman candles, stopping traffic,
And showing her just where on my heart she need to barb her arrows;
And I am laying bare, hopeless and despondent,
A speck of a man before her uncountable lair.