Finis, Mary Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Put it out like milk for the kitten’s tongue;
Or let us say our prayers without speaking before bed.
Then by the moonlike light your breasts grow tinsels of
Spikenard, your eyes the fine jubilee of a sommelier’s discriminating
Palate: and here is a donkey, and three wise men,
But I am scarred, Mary, even in your bed- My words are
Just as scarred. They more often than not fail. There is nothing
Immaculate about me, but maybe my hands- They do
Commercials; but that’s why the baby can’t be mine.
I can see how you conceived him somewhere between Dallas
And Atlanta with the commercial airlines pilot,
The old quarterback, his blue cap hiding
His bald spot you didn’t know, or his grandfather the octogenarian:
But my scars you cannot hide,
But the grass is green, Mary; it is so green, and I enjoy mowing it
On the weekends- I give the Mexicans time off, and I drink
Rum, Mary, burned from the sugarcanes where the alligators tan;
And why I can just look up and tip a cheap glass and look at
Your belly shooting like a silver star over suburbia; while you smile:
Soon they will be selling it on major intersections across America;
But now there are two oblique wet spots on your dark blue pantsuit;
And I am not going anywhere. Only pink angora can hide how
Rich you are, Mary, like a Vineyard growing up the stony nape
On the hill of Golgotha fed by a river from Jesus’ side, a holy
Spigot which first gave Catholicism its preemptive ideals;
Holy plagiarism decorated in pagan’s garlands,
And now the sun and blue velvet curtains, exeunt stage left
Then a fine living room, and drink, and skinny dipping in the Jacuzzi
Around teal shadows with people I’d hate to know. Then finis,
Mary, Finis.