Softly Burning Nursery Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Wound in my heart of
Valentine;
Looking through this thicket—the sun gets
Lost, won’t it be mine,
Or petted down into the crepuscule of
A petted dinner,
Like wet paint rolling over and over,
The hills a river—
A sea of used cars with so many dash boards
Overlooking the sad memories
Of the pornographies of a young love:
It takes such a long time to get over her,
That by the time it is possible to
Hardly remember:
Even though she still works across the sections of
The earth,
In the old neighborhood, collected with chips of
Paint and scars:
Hers is a church of brown eyes, and fingers
Spread in a web of effigy—
As she laughs for you in the soft firelight of
A softly burning nursery.