Fine Young Yesterday Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Soft pacifists in murals of malaise:
I can barely see you sweaty over the bedroom of
My young days,
Because my ears are burning from cheap wine,
They don’t hear reveille or get up on time,
And they are past over like sated lions on Mondays,
And the tourists have all gone down their enthroned
Gullets like strawberry Sundays,
And up in the sky didn’t I say they are advertising
Your wedding day;
But anyway, hip hip hurray: and didn’t they once have
The world fair in Saint Louis or
Chicago; and weren’t we there high stepping through
The papier-mâché jungles-
And didn’t you know that Sara Teasdale is buried
Belle Fontaine, that she was married to someone she
Didn’t love,
And the way she thought of him along the stark midways
Of her younger days- I’m sure I know, if I can’t rightly
Say-
The traffic skips by like amphibians opening wide
And ululating on into crepuscule,
And I missed you in school today, but I guess it doesn’t
Matter, because I am not beautiful
And I don’t think you love me- at least not the way
I love you- forever- even if you once loved me that
Fine young yesterday.