Not Entirely Sure What I Saw What Is Still Taking Up My Time Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I just don’t care that there
Are so many people moving in my mind,
Given over to drink and conversational
Séances—That I cannot succeed with them
All inside me at once,
And even though many of them are beautiful
And have tall legs, is no good excuse;
Or that I see them riding trolleys through the
Overgrown city, and even though it is
Another day they are still sharing in the
Same conversation and drinks;
And everyone of them wants to be enjoyed
By me, but they do not want to understand me,
Or sit by me, or say, oh well, and give up a kiss:
Rather, I am something like a steady grandfather
For them, and seeing them is what I do for them,
Because their business really isn’t any good unless
They have someone to be seen by;
And this is what I do for them, but curl on out of
My avenues and watch them moving without effort,
Seeming to stand still in my vision, conversational
And well intoxicated;
And it occurs to me that I’d been wrong the entire
Time, that, yes, not one of them gives a nickel for art,
Or the smoke halls of abandoned theatres,
Because I can never find them there when I find myself
Out of work, and must go driving for them;
But they also care nothing for money, or becoming
Rich, which I thought was the America profession,
But rather they care only for this, being accepted and well-
Liked by the other people I have picked for them,
And sent running into them bosomy and well-suited so that
They at first might apologize, and then begin in conversations
Which last all afternoon, tall men leaning up against these
Petit women all dressed up in street cars,
Their eyes the subtlety of their greatest needs, so that I
Could only say truthfully that I had seen but one of them
Glancing briefly toward my emptiness,
Making sure that I was still there and painful,
And keeping my unrequited watch, taking mental notes
Of the lovely things and their perfumed apathy
As they quite eagerly carried on.