Forbearing Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Scents of her hair
Searching out the windowsill;
Dried by the pollinated breeze,
She stares down the road
Surveying for lovers of her will:
Young men whose job it is
To go from door to door
Selling tuning forks
They absentmindedly use to
Pick their teeth.
The further the day proceeds
The older the houses become
Until they are kicking up dust
In their ancestors’ neighborhood—
You can never say what was,
Certainly,
Except for the marble truth
Carved in the tombs’ resting boards
Robed in waxy ivy
And folded spindles of
A spider’s home.
Pulling back the hiding ways,
You smell her like a crisp
Green apple cut to its core,
Mortally explored and fed upon
As she lies sleeping there,
Your grandmother
Or someone who might have
Known her….