Can You Imagine? Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Can you imagine,
How many lawyers and doctors
There are in South Florida?
I can see them, crapping in their toilets,
So close to the Atlantic, in their
Upper-Middle class homes so near the
Sea—They never think of the sea,
Because their wives are beautiful,
They have no use for the sea….
But I have no wife,
So the sea is mine and I lounge with
Her and slip her the tongue,
And we play together like Bonnie and Clyde—
We rise up and rob and make love in wreathing,
Vengeful fits…. Can you imagine,
All those useless professions scheming,
Accumulating wealth and accomplishments
They use to dress their cheap lives,
Never thinking of the masses who move beneath
Them, the limestone that is rotting away beneath
Them…. They have no time for such things….
They are making grand additions to their lives….
Their walls are clotted with plaques and honors,
And every single one of them has a picture of
Themselves with a famous politician….
Is this what you want? Is this what we were made
To become? Never mind the advertisements,
Or what your parents tell you….
Listen, is this really you?
Is your soul there, walled up in a high-rise office,
Asking your secretary to take notations….
I can not think. I can not see….
There are homeless people without names,
Without identities walking like shadows on the street,
But they are angels, they are the scholars of Jesus,
And they come to her shore and watch us swim
Like a motion picture backlit by the flickering sun,
The ancient Hebrew who denotes right from wrong,
And here there is beauty and infinite change….
They cannot see this…. They cannot know,
So let us be very quiet and pull a curtain over
Our love making, and move into one another
Very quietly but with much passion,
Because if they knew, they would want what we have….
But they can not know, they can not understand….
They are mystified by the Pharaoh’s gifts,
By the slick promises of dead emperors
and sad presidents.
They cannot imagine all that we have….