Indefinitely Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Riding out on the bus
Where the president is younger than my parents,
But it is even more a curious thing
I am no longer beautiful; and I am doing nothing,
And I have been these things for so long
That it wouldn’t matter if I went out along the
Pier after midnight and tossed bread to the sea,
And figured out that all the time that was where
You’d been waiting for me,
Dark bodies graffitied with silver and misused
Wishes;
How you’d left the indentations of your scent in
My frontal lobe while you left on your luxury cruise
For your honey moon with the older more professional
Man-
In some ways, you only showed your tan-lines;
and how after class was over, I’d go home and
Lay you out on the green carpet, on the green carpet,
As the sun set beneath the canal and cypress;
How little girls came with gifts and games, on roller skates
Through the serpentine ways, calling out to their personal
Saints, but not a one called out to me; and paper airplanes
Flew, and stewardesses served me drinks on the television;
And I thought of you- I thought of you, while the black
Men drank rum. Bicycles were stolen and no one remembered
To feed the alligators. Trees slipped into the sea that didn’t
Move; it didn’t move,
And you didn’t think of me- I stayed up until morning
And laughed with the rattlesnakes warming around the ankles
Of my dogs, and by dawn it started to rain slightly in at least
Half of the mowed yard. The paper trees were burning,
And the sugar cane- The moccasins were snaking,
And I came across the decision to never return to your school
Again.