It Is Not Easy Poem by Robert Rorabeck

It is not easy to find
New words to justify myself
These days,
To keep the knife balanced
On the fruit of my throat
Without slipping in,
To sever the secret
Things I’ll never say;
It is not easy to look
At things in the mirror
And say that they are not
So different from their
Reflections; in the homeless
Summer, failed men make
Love in the park and
Little blonde boys with
Red lunch boxes return
Home from school—
When no one else is
Home, it is not easy to
See the world from
Where you live— The
Roof is too low to watch
The ocean rolling infinite,
To see the planes flying
Like choreographed
Angels of superstructure as the alligators
Swim lazy like prehistoric
And ugly mermaids through her
Man-made waterways—
To see the homeless come
Toward your childhood,
To lead it away from school
And down to the sea
To feel forever through the
Waves as stoned professionals,
The adulterers make love
In the sad nearby;
It is not easy to look her
In the eye,
To take his hand and let
Him lead you beneath the rolling calms—
And the sky is hollow
And filled with echoes
Where she takes you;
It is not easy to keep
Writing these things,
The woodcarvers and
Morticians lay down in their
Architectures
In the land of graveyards
The dead go on forever,
But it is not easy—