If I Called You Tonight Poem by Robert Rorabeck

You reek of amusement parks,
And dorm room sex,
The memories of fieldtrips you never went on.
I want to call you,
But I don’t know what to say,
And there are so many things to attend to
In the worrisome Gulf Streams of
North Atlantic loneliness-
Soon I will have to attend my sister’s
College funeral, and there will be so
Many suspecting eyes, blinking spontaneously
The instinctual needs of far away flesh-
The dark rooms where life develops,
And the places we go to remember nostalgically,
The best places are not real;
I want to call you, but I don’t know
What to say, trying to forget the dissection of
Galleries from the homeless artist-
Couldn’t I take you there without lifting a finger,
And we could spend the entire time not
Looking at each other, but riding the rides,
The mechanisms which try not to comprehend gravity;
One day there should be children and
Merry-go-rounds and fly elephants,
And my eyes on your hips like a weapon,
And love made in pastel paddle boats on lazy
Rivers where the animals are given luxurious cages
And fed popcorn;
There I could see the sweat of your eyes, and
Clasp your forearm to stabilize the trade of tongues,
And we could abandon ourselves,
And become the exhibit of coupling in chlorine,
Like otters, we play with these mollusks
And cannot comprehend the affinities for time,
Our children would be the squeaking pups I would
Hold up to your breast as you sang,
So what would it matter at all then,
If I called you tonight?