On Even Days Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I’ll see you first from the
Crows nest of my soul,
And jerk off to the first aerodynamic flume of
Airplanes,
Because there is so much about you to love,
After a few beers and all the terrible
Traffic has past;
And we’ve defeated the British and are singing about
It on our July 4th on our little yard which is just
Ours,
A menage trois between us and the bank,
And our one citrus tree which has canker but so many
Children budded roundly plumped from the vine,
And many words unspoken,
And all of it like a strangely fruitful model of the universe
I slip down under just as I am about to go to
Sleep, so warmed from liquor and speech,
All these people around me who are friendly,
But who I really shouldn’t compare as friends;
And yet I love them,
Even as your eyes are truncated like soft, easily bruised
Fruit into bedrooms;
And your name is E-, and you don’t write all,
Which is very unprofessional of you,
And I just keep going on and on, breaking like a kaleidoscope
At a steady clip,
Like so many waves, like soft palates clapped together
Like cymbals all across Loxahatchee and Wellington,
And graveyards full of so many friends
Who don’t know me at all but should wake up with me
Yawning in the unsteady dawn,
Nervous when greeting the lord like a conductor or a bus
Driver shaking his hands
Who we never knew anyways, but like our love for you,
E-,
Are grateful for all the same- At least on even days.