Ending This Thing Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I’ve drunken you to distill by
Unsober soul;
And nothing that I have is perfect,
And it is because I have no children-
All I have is my lonely song,
But for the last several days I have become finally
The budding thing, misspelling;
But finally, yes beautiful; and you know, I am over
Six feet tall- I am about as tall as your husband,
And I have so many things for you to use,
If you have a garden that needs tending,
And I know you have a garden-
You have a beautiful, anonymous garden-
And I’ve almost caught upon it,
And these words are sickly things, sickly birds,
I send out to you to play with your young child,
Cartoons, mobiles, entire airports:
don’t see I am the alligator smiling at you from the
Rippling shallows; it is a good thing to have death so
Near to you,
To know that I am a pet for you,
That I will deliver your mail to you- Wherever you live
You know how faithful this mailman is;
And my sister is coming because it is her birthday,
So this evening I bought candles, and vanilla ice-cream,
And a bottle of cheap rum; but the bottle of cheap rum
That was just for me,
So that I might sing tonight for you;
That last stanza, a run on sentence, a nonsequitor,
An unapologetic romance, was just so that I might serenade
You; because I am not Shakespeare,
Because I am skipping school,
Even now leaping over crenulated canals filled with the ululations
Of approaching reptilian death,
To slip into auburn liquors atop of suburban roofs,
To shoot of fireworks underneath the blowing skirts of sky,
To be a teamster under you, to show you my teeth,
To worship you, the only religion I know how;
And your eyes are green and not unlike unmowed yards
I guess you’ve never seen,
Which, I guess, is how I’ll choose to end this thing.