Exactly What I Should Not Do Poem by Robert Rorabeck

The silent ships proceed through the forsaken
Shadows of your old neighborhood:
All the places where we used to make love,
And even before us, where myself and my aunt would
Experiment out amidst the corn snakes and the old
Tomato hampers,
Under the harvest moon, and the balloons that we would
Send away with dollar bills taped to their strings
For the hobos,
While your mother and father were slipping away:
While my grandparents were separating like two parts of
The disenchanted sea,
And we could both go up to Disney World at separate times,
But it would do no good to save any of us:
Your husband was too beautifully drunk to be faithful to you,
And now he lives like a guest in the house of your children
And your new boyfriend;
And we hardly even talk anymore, because we are just
Related- And it will rain tomorrow, the trucks will come making
A mess off the peat, at the caribou will fumble,
And the Mexicans will roll some more dice out amidst the stampedes
Of the cloven feet;
But you will not remember me, nor will I remember you,
Because I do not speak to anyone anymore, though if I have loved
Anyone, then in our early morning pagan schoolyards that is just
What I did before I knew exactly what I should not do.