Childish Burn Poem by Robert Rorabeck

A new day goes over like this,
Like Jack over his candle, and what am I to
Say for this,
Only that I am not any more than yesterday unless
It is contented;
I certainly don’t know you anymore
(who are you- and why do I sing to you like a
Dying soldier in his basement meadows?)
Mostly, it is about new things now, and the repercussions
Of holidays, and the good music left unresolved,
And your legs? Your legs? Let them run for other men,
Let other men put their fingers down their rivers like
Little boys and their slaves.
I don’t care. Who said I ever cared? I am only this,
And I don’t mean to brag. I have a book published no one
Reads, and I am thinking of buying a house full out and living
In it just like the afterlife of one of those Egyptian Pharaohs,
And I can walk to and from the humid green yard
And the air-conditioning, to intersperse the ululations with the
Hums; and what of you by means of this? It is not a thing
But a childish burn, a birthmark: Something that can not
Be taken back, like a murder the sun almost has solved by morning,
And I make my omelets and look out my window
At the empty yard and all those bilious clouds.