My Empty Dove Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Pageantry of their star-crossed heavens,
Just as another beauty pretends
To dissolve
As the katydids just so
Immolate in their open yards, just as I’ve
Been swelling up,
Trying to become just as gigantic
As a perfume-
But I’ve been slowly dying- bloated
Dog on the concrete of your
Expatriated ballroom-
And all of the flies are laughing,
And there is not another bird that ever has to
Sing again,
But the theatres fill up with bodies presupposing in
The lamplight that someone especially has to be
Their king-
As they try filing out and then to making love-
And this is just the empty pageantry of my tomorrow-
If it just so happens that you happen to be
My empty dove.