The Better Man Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I drink to you:
Since kindgarten I’ve stolen things and looked at fresh
Pornography in stolen cars,
Ladies in the chassies, like conquistadors in their dunes,
The cenotaphs of bared breasts,
And all of their best stuff;
And you are my blue eyed muse, and the waves retreat like
Frightened unicorns,
And then they come again and this time give me oral
Sex;
And all of this time it is you I’ve thought of
Captured like rhapsodies of ecstasy in the waves;
And on our senior fieldtrip we went to Disney World,
But I did drugs:
I could barely look at you. Could you hardly believe that I
Was genius;
And now that you know that I will not die, do you want to
Join my disjointed ship:
There is room: I have made you a bed, for you and your husband
Side by side:
I will not watch you undress:
I am a good man, lonely, broken: I will introduce you to my dogs,
And give you safe haven, and set you free,
And if you do not come back to me then I know you have found dry
Land and a place to built a better home
In better place than the strange churches whose rafters I have bled
For you off work in cartoon Sundays,
Like a blind man cursing the god, or the better man who
So easily led you away from me.