The Catfish And The Minnows Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Soft and languishing on
Fire Island where you lost your life,
Frank O'Hara—
Falling in love with firemen,
Writing poems about Chinamen—
As the birds touched their wings like
Lips to the sky,
While the coffins wondered why ever
The dead had to die—
And up there the echoes never had
To fall down,
The tulips bloomed into the midnights of
The midnight playgrounds—
And we got off wherever we could—
In the middle of the day, bloomed the pornographies
Of our woods,
And the echoes resolved themselves to the
Catfish and the minnows—
Until I had to look my muse in the eye,
And had to reassure her that she would never die.