Mark Alexander Poem by Robert Rorabeck

No more flowers for the beautiful words:
We can work it all out right here,
While I remember imperfectly slipping books back into the library
Before going back to work at five a.m.
As of now, I do not have to believe in angels anymore-
I have a wife and child, after all—
My wife just as imperfect but so much better than I am—
And my child, child:
My child is a stolen bicycle going up the hidden side of a rainy mountain,
Some place unspeakably beautiful that you cannot know anymore:
Until, I know we will grow distant and remote
In the desolations of this life:
My child, my child—
Won’t he hate and resent me,
And curse me and love me
And, hopefully, never read a word written by me—
As I have so few words anymore that are not spun imperfectly by
Midnight’s liquor—
Soon we will be returning together to our home in the states—
And our time spent in China will be just a daydream he is yet too young
To remember,
But he is perfect, my son: Mark Alexander,
And this poem has become for him,
As he is made from both hemispheres,
And now has taken airplanes twice back and forth across the earth—
Both inside and outside the womb—
A beautiful man, my sun,
A muse for the stewardesses,
A handsome man who shall never be alone.