Melanie Laurent Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Comparing scars with a French starlet is
Fun but misleading;
But it helps to pass the time while the dogs
Are sleeping,
And there isn’t much else going on in Northern
Michigan:
Girls are playing pinball or curling their
Hair,
Chimneys are smoking, the evergreens are
Mostly naked and proselytizing like violin bows
In such wind-
And the sky is an aphrodisiac above a narcoleptic
Park; and if I had her now,
This is what we’d do; we’d play conquistadors,
And dress up and spread our religion.
Mostly it would be about her baring teeth;
It would be nice and unwholesomely empirical,
And the umpire would squat and squint his eye as
We went slowly into the hotel room,
Not turning back as we closed the door;
And we’d play through the ninth inning and overtime,
And I’d imagine her lips in the darkness of her eyes.
We’d sit on each others’ laps and watch home movies
Of mermaids and seashells
Until the dog came scratching at the door
And made me remove the covers and get out of
Melanie’s make-believe.