Johnny Gets Done For Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Unquiet, lasting quiet,
Even under the tallest buildings the world
Is moving and trying to get it done,
And I try to stay away from there,
Even though I was pulled from there;
And that is where she lives, and, and
For an uncountable number of days it was
Only a fata morgana of the school grounds
So many years ago- I like to pretend it was
Only ten, but it was maybe more-
I know it was more, and I loved a girl that
Looked just like her, but this girl didn’t
Exist- I don’t like to know which one,
And I don’t like to mess around with the
Alternative- that she was evil, and carried
A gun, and went out with other boys,
Out where the leaves wreathed like molested
Crinoline that some careless mother had wrapped all
Around the fences and Australian pines and palm
Trees; and it was uneasy looking for her, for my heart
And my teeth were coming out, and it wasn’t a good
Fairy-tale, because I was like the rabbit or hart following
The wolf, and I don’t think exactly that she wanted
Me to find her, calling now his name beneath the broken
Down motor of his showing automobile,
Arching now the dirty cruxes of their disheveling truancy;
It was that she didn’t care,
And didn’t know my name- and when the next wind came,
They drove off to long summer parks, where they would
Kiss and foreplay all afternoon and into the next day,
And I just stood there for a very long time,
Blown away because nobody could tell me who I was
Or what had happened to affect me this way.