Onto The Teak Poem by Robert Rorabeck

In the way I understand love,
I risk you onto the teak,
The hard furniture not to be touched; from here the
Insouciance of the pool is not a fraud.
I can stare from here and see that you
Must love him,
Once or twice down the line of your men,
You must love him and not me.
Now they have bought something which will
Last the week,
And I have risked you onto the teak;
Here I must not touch you, but I must:
Bare-backed, I have kissed you on the cheek;
Or, these are some things I must say before
I skip on down the creek,
A river of schoolboys coming home through the yards,
Mistaken as early-morning soldiers, shot and misted
Into the grass. They lay there silent as more soldiers march past.
They have broken things all of teal, made for you
But you’re not real; though their jaws remain of unbroken steel;
But the passing of a songbird’s shadow,
A lover who in time will show the peacock’s color,
And kiss and fawn straight on the brother:
I have loved you, and thought of you barebacked on the teak,
Cooked and scrubbed, and in you sneak,
Just like the sham cut from the pool, you cut through the yard,
And in your drool,
Made of tallow, fishing line and sin; but I’m a fool,
I let you in. You love me no longer, or you
Never did, and I am a crippled, abandoned kid
Listening to what you has asked me to do,
And so I kneel and polish you.
Onto the teak you’re finely drawn, the shades are drawn,
And the sunlight falls and fawns upon the early morning lawn.